REVIEWED BY Melinda Lazar
A Boy Like You by Ginger ScottMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A Boy Like You by Ginger Scott
4.5*
I'm generally a pretty quick reader but when I first started A Boy Like You and was reduced to tears in the PROLOGUE, I made sure I slowed right down and savored every word of this book.
Joss's life is irrevocably changed one afternoon when he family as she knows it is torn apart and she's almost killed by her father. Her savior is the quiet, odd, highly unpopular boy from school, Christopher. After saving her life, Christopher disappears, never to be seen or heard from again.
We skip ahead eight years where, at seventeen, Joss is on a most destructive path and guess what? Her father is too. Her mother is gone from her life and for all intents and purposes, her father is too. He may be physically present, but that's where it stops. Where Joss plays on the girls baseball team, her father, a functioning alcoholic, coaches the boys baseball team and one of his newest players bears a striking resemblance to that boy from years ago. Only his name is Wes. Time and time again throughout this book, Wes saves Joss but the one person he can't save her from is herself.
While so many times throughout the book I really wanted to give Joss a hug and tell her everything would be ok, there were countless others that I wanted to backhand her into last week. For around the first third of the book I found myself incredibly frustrated with her and her actions but then I got over it. Joss's relationship with her dad is heartbreaking and I really wanted to give him a good shake, to be the father she deserved and needed but he couldn't see past his own issues.
This is the only the second book of Scott's that I've read but I have to say that her heroes are just that. Heroes. You can't help but fall in love with these guys: they have integrity, strength, HEART. Oh my God, do they have heart. Wes has all of that and more. Just a beautiful person from the inside out and I couldn't help but love him. He cares so much for Joss, more than she cares for herself and he provided the perfect balance to her inclination to self-destruct. In essence, he's perfection.
Considering I was in tears from the beginning of the book, I knew I'd be in for an emotional ride and it really was one. Scott's novels seem to make my heart ache in the best possible way and while I normally steer clear of emotional books, I can't seem to stay away from hers. Her writing consumes you and you become fully invested in the characters and their story. This book is not a standalone. It ends on something of a cliffhanger which I (usually) positively loathe HOWEVER I think A Boy Like You stops in the perfect place. It ends in a spot that gives us hope and in all honesty, I think we're better off reading the two books separate of each other rather than back to back. Having said that, I cannot wait for book two. Definitely recommend.
*arc received in exchange for honest review.
**Reviewed by Melinda for Joandisalovebooks Blog.
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