Coast (Kick Push #2) by Jay McLean

Available on
Amazon.com * Amazon.de * Goodreads
Synopsis:

One life-changing summer. 

One boy.

The boy.

The boy who offered me safe touches and heart-stopping smiles - smiles he shared with his son.

We filled our days with porch-step kisses, 

filled our ears with laughter, 

filled our hearts with love. 

Deep, soul-aching, desperate love.

But love is misleading.

It's an invisible, fleeting moment.

Somewhere between false adoration and pure hatred comes an emotion, a vulnerable need, a single desire.

It lives within the ones who miss it, who crave it, 

who know better than to expect it.

Love is relentless.

Even when that love turns to hate, turns to loathing, 

turns to pain. 

Love should heal you. 

But it can also break you. 

Believe me, I know...

Because I'm Becca Owens - a broken girl...

...And he's Josh Warden - the boy who broke me.

Review:

*Note: This is the second part of a continuous story. You should have read Kick Push prior to reading this book. Spoiler for that first book ahead*

Oh, Josh how I loved you. If not for him I am not sure I would have enjoyed Coast as much as I did. Really he and Tommy won me over in Kick Push so I wanted them to get their happily ever after. I wanted Josh to have everything he ever wanted, everything that would make him happy, even if that means he is with Becca. I didn't really connect with her in the first book and she annoyed me at times in this one, but she is who he wants so I wanted it to work out for him. He is so sweet, and cute, and funny, and wonderful.

When I first started reading I was reading Becca's sections about how she is afraid of Josh, how he did such horrible things to her and stuff, and I was really confused. How she went on about it I kept thinking did I miss something? I remember Josh had a meltdown at one point when all of the stress got to him in Kick Push, but he just destroyed some things and yelled at everyone, then felt really bad about it. It was understandable, but he never went to physically hurt anyone, and even what he yelled at Becca was heartbreaking for me. He was hurt that this girl he fell in love with was just going to leave him and not tell him. I got it then and still get it now, but I kept thinking there had to be something else. Something to make Becca genuinely fear being around Josh, and not just fear the feelings he brings out in her. So I went back and re-read a bit of Kick Push and didn't see anything 'super horrible terrible he is the worst' that happened. I know she has issues from her mom, but she has been going to therapy and trying to work through them. Even writing this after finishing the story I still don't really understand why she was so afraid of him.

So yeah I didn't care much for Becca. She pretty much didn't ever consider Josh and his feelings, what he is going through, and I hated that. I loved him so much I disliked her because I just wanted him to be happy. He hasn't been able to move on with his life, hasn't been able to move on with anyone else, and he is just going through the motions. He goes back to his hotel room every night sad and alone and missing Becca. He blames himself for breaking her, breaking them, but he really didn't. Even without his meltdown things wouldn't have been super happily ever after because she was already broken. Something would have happened to tear them apart because she needed to work on herself before trying to be with someone like that. Now he still hasn't been able to move on, he still loves her, still wants to be with her, but she is too afraid to. I know she is broken but gah!

The first part of the story was just me yelling at Becca for being so afraid of Josh. For being so cruel even if she doesn't mean to be. For not being strong enough to see that he is one of the sweetest guys ever. Then things start getting better. Josh and Becca slowly start to heal what was broken. And then it was kind of sweet. Seriously Josh is amazing and I loved the slow coming together again of these two characters. After all she has been through and all she feels there is no way they could have just instantly jumped into everything full on. So it was nice. And I was happy. Josh was happy, Tommy was happy (and super cute!) and so it was all good. I'm glad Josh was able to get everything he wanted even if the journey annoyed me at times. This was still a great read.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★