Craves The Angst: REVIEW - COLLATERAL DAMAGE (Cross My Heart #2) by Katie Klein:

TITLE: Collateral Damage
SERIES: Cross My Heart
SERIES PLACEMENT: #2
AUTHOR: Katie Klein
AGE GROUP: YA/NA
GENRE: Contemporary Romance
RELEASE DATE: May 21, 2013
PUBLISHER: SPA
FORMAT: eBook
PAGES: Approx. 252

MY GOODREADS REVIEW LINK
RATING: 4 Stars!
CLIFFHANGER: No
HEA: Yes

BOOK BLURB:
True love can blossom in unexpected places. This is Parker pretending not to care. . . .

Parker Whalen and Jaden McEntyre are a wrong fit from the start. Jaden is driven and focused, Harvard Med School within reach. Parker has a past—a reputation—and the rumors about his mysterious habits abound. So there’s no reason why, when they're assigned to work together on a project in English, they should discover they have anything in common, or even like each other, and they definitely shouldn't be falling in love.

What they have? It isn't real. Because the truth is, Parker Whalen is a liar. This has never mattered…until now. Because lying to someone you care about—someone who matters, someone who believes in you—that's when people get hurt. And Parker is about to hurt Jaden in the biggest way imaginable.

4 Cross My Heart Stars!

The Review:

AWESOME READ!!

Collateral Damage is a companion book to one of my all time favs, Cross My Heart. I do suggest reading CMH first or some of the events in this book will be confusing. Plus I think the big reveal needs to be read from Jaden’s POV first.

When I saw there was a book in Parkers POV, I jumped on it so quick, the buy button wasn’t fully pressed before I was opening it and on the first page! I loved Cross My Heart have have read it three times since I first found it almost three years ago. It was one of the first book I’d read in the YA, high-school angsts genre and it has remained one of my favorites, years later. I always wondered what Parker was thinking, how he was feeling and I got it. I loved how the original story was completely retold with new and surprising information included in this fantastic book.

Parker Whalen wasn’t the guy I thought him to be from CMH, but I think I fell for him even more. He wasn’t perfect. He was flawed and had this other life going on behind the scenes of CMH we never knew about... and it was exciting, angsty and full of surprises. I know some people had a problem with that other life, but for me, I saw it as a beautiful tale of how true love wins out. He was young and had this past that he was trying to live down. He was at a crossroads and being with Jaden, changed everything for him. He saw his life changing, his feelings changing and his heart changing. I loved him, flaws and all.

We get up close and personal with how he felt about his life, his job, his relationships, his friendships and what he was going through during his time undercover. I loved getting his perspective and I also really loved that it wasn’t some insta-unrequited-love with Jaden as he suffered from afar. He knew about her, he was in class with her but he had the wrong impression about her and it wasn’t until the bathroom scene that he started to see her in a different light.

Their romance was wrong on so many levels but also perfect on every level. Getting his side of all the major points in CMH along with the extras from his own personal and professional life was so much fun. And I enjoyed the HEA epilogue we got in this book. We see a different side to both of these characters through Parkers eyes and they left me with a feel-good that has made this book a wonderful addition to their already amazing story.