Craves The Angst: NEW REVIEW! REMEMBER ME FOREVER (Lovely Vicious #3) by Sara Wolf:

"I felt their pain down to my bones and I LOVE stories that can do that for me." - Craves the Angst

TITLE: Remember Me Forever
SERIES: Lovely Vicious #3
AUTHOR: Sara Wolf
AGE GROUP: YA/NA
GENRE: Contemporary Romance
RELEASE DATE: May 2, 2017
PUBLISHER: Entangled: Teen
PAGES: Approx. 320

COPY PROVIDED BY: Purchased
MY GOODREADS REVIEW LINK
RATING: 4 Stars!
CLIFFHANGER: YES!

BOOK BLURB:
Isis Blake hasn’t fallen in love in three years, forty-three weeks, and two days. Or so she thinks.

The boy she maybe-sort-of-definitely loved and sort-of-maybe-definitely hated has dropped off the face of the planet in the face of tragedy, leaving a Jack Hunter–shaped hole. Determined to be happy, Isis fills it in with lies and puts on a brave smile for her new life at Ohio State University.

But the smile lasts only until he shows up. The menace from her past—her darkest secret, Nameless—is attending OSU right alongside her. And he’s whispering that he has something Isis wants—something she needs to see to move forward. To move on.

Isis has always been able to pretend everything is okay. But not anymore.

Isis Blake might be good at putting herself back together.

But Jack Hunter is better.

4 “Living is really weird.” Stars!

Still emotional. Still fun. And definitely still one of my favorite series!

The Review:

I’m on the fence about this one, between really loving it or just really liking it. Whereas I absolutely LOVED the first two books, this one left me ... disappointed? That’s not really the right word, but it’s close. I still loved the story. I still loved Isis and Jack .. especially Isis. She never fails to impress me or make me laugh and she never fails to break my heart, but I was a little disappointed in the story itself. It just didn’t go the way I expected it to.

Story/Characters...

The beginning was great. Isis spends the summer contemplating her life choices after the horrific and sad ending in book two. She spends time with her estranged dad and goes to see her Gran, who I instantly connected with because now I understand where Isis get’s her wild streak and her endearing personality. She also spends time looking for Jack after his mom begs for her help in finding him. After her searches turn up nothing, she’s off to college to start living out her life as best she can, even with a broken heart. But her own painful past quickly catches up to her.

Jack is in the worse kind of self-torture. He blames himself for Sophia and he also thinks he let Isis down in the worse way possible. Drinking himself to death and fighting his way from town to town, he’s knocking on death's door when Gregory, from book two, finds him and persuades him to work for him. Now he’s on a mission to catch a bad guy and runs into Isis, who he never thought he’d see again.

Isis... she can’t be summed up with words. She’s too mythical. She’s my unicorn! I just loved her so freaking much. Her personality is a force of nature unlike any I’ve read before. You can’t help but love her and you can’t help but be drawn to her.

I enjoyed Jack in this book to, but his choices confused me. And it all comes from the direction the author took the book. Like I said, I enjoyed this story, but Jack goes from reluctant escort who needed money for Sophia, to a bodyguard/spy who needed the challenge to contain his inner demons. He takes a job that puts him directly in the path of Will, Isis’s tormentor, and he has every intention of making Will pay for everything he did to Isis. That part was realistic, considering how much he cared for Isis, but his bodyguard/spy career was kind of a stretch, for an eighteen year old. And then when this story unfolds, Jack spends a lot of time pushing Isis away and Isis spends most of the story finding herself. I loved that Isis was able to work through her self doubts and her issues. It was heartbreaking to watch, but I loved it. However, the author spent a great deal of time fleshing out her character when we already knew her so well, and she sacrificed the romance between Jack and Isis for inconsequential things in the story.

In other words, we spend a lot of time watching Isis go to parties, make friends, pulling pranks and ruminating over her feelings. We spend a lot of time watching Jack do his spy thing and pushing Isis away. We don’t see a lot in the way of romance or reconnecting between these two, until the last few chapters of the book. I wanted romance. I wanted reconnecting and I wanted to see them being happy together instead of Jack still sleeping with other women for his job and Isis mackin' on guys that weren’t Jack. There just wasn’t enough of Jack and Isis ... together ... to satisfy me.

I did enjoy Isis getting her her own in the end though! Oh how those scenes just made my day! But that ending... I both loved and disliked it. I loved it because it showed us a beautiful HEA, after all the heartbreak. But I also disliked it because it was short and didn’t make much sense. It felt rushed and the “where are they now” part just didn’t fulfill me the way I wanted.

Special Shout of for The writing...

Reading Isis’s hurt was so palatable! It was painful and totally made my insides burn, my eyes water and I felt like my heart was being pulled from my chest on so many occasions. This author did a phenomenal job sucking me into the “feels” of Isis, and the pain Jack was in, yanking deep, soul searing emotions out of me. I felt their pain down to my bones and I LOVE stories that can do that for me. Fantastic writing!

The Wrap Up:

Overall, I felt the romance was sacrificed for inconsequential scenes and unnecessary character development. This book didn’t go the way I thought it would. And after books one and two totally blew me away, I guess I was a bit disappointed. But I enjoyed it nonetheless and this is still going into my reread pile!