This is a great book with a wonderful story and well developed characters. The story flowed very well and was very enjoyable. This book will keep you reading long into the night and you will not want to put this book down until you finish. This was such a great read and full of surprises. I voluntarily reviewed an advanced reader’s copy of this book. The free book held no determination on my personal review.

This book is a cute book, Pepper was into all kinds of trouble. I really enjoyed this book and finished it in one sitting. This is a feel good hilarious book

I really don't want to sound rude in my review, but I have to be frank. I wanted to like this book. I thought the plot sounded like a cute, easy, kick back and relax read, but halfway through the book I had to force myself to finish. There are several reasons why I struggled with this book and again, I don't want to be rude, but I need to be honest. One reason is that the internal monologues Pepper constantly had felt odd. The transitions from third person to random first person thoughts were awkward and not necessary. Her internal thoughts could've been expressed in third person since the story was mostly focussed on her (third person limited).

Another reason I struggled was because the transitions from point A to B with character actions as well as scenes felt abrupt. I'm not the type of reader that needs overly done detail, but in this case, there were moments where the author was strong in painting the scene and others where she really lacked. Somewhere along the way there was too much telling, and not enough showing of what the characters were feeling or doing. Which brings me back to the transitions. One moment a character would be sitting and the next they would be in the kitchen, for example. While that is something small, as a reader that can be confusing when it happens often and those little things add up, making you wonder if you keep missing something.

I think what really started causing me to lose interest was when the story became very dialogue driven. When there is too much dialogue it begins to read more like a screen play, because there's little story being told in between. I want to get to know the characters I'm readng about, but instead I only scratched the surface. Again, I don't need too much detail or fluffy words, but I do need the story to continue being told and have a break from the talking. Most of the time the dialogue, even the internal thoughts felt repetitive or gratuitous. I started to wonder if the author was running short on ideas. Not only that, the dialogue and character actions started feeling juvenile. Example, Pepper constantly jumping to conclusions and running away. Or Derick's very immature behavior. I get it, he was supposed to be a jerk, but he seemed like a hormonal teen trying to get Pepper back. Which made me also wonder if the author was a teenager and therefore writing the characters with very young personalities?

It made it hard for me to connect with, or even care for them after a while, since a lot of their actions and reactions didn't feel well thought out. There were too many "out of the blue" occurances. Example, when Derick just happens to show up on shore, conveniently in front of Pepper and Ty (after swimming for miles through a tropical storm, mind you), felt completely unrealistic and odd. Especially since he threw a tantrum, literally kicked sand and stormed away while flipping them off... um what? A man as stubborn and controlling as him just walks away because he's told to? Didn't seem realistic for his character. Plus having him show up after being missing could've been tackled in a less cliché way. When there are too many "pop-ups" it loses it's effectiveness and Derick has a lot of pop-ups.

Later what puzzled me even more was how when Derick shows up again, begging for Pepper to hear him out, Ty just walks away, leaving Pepper alone to talk with Derick who was clearly unstable. If Ty was aware of Derick being abusive, why would he leave Pepper alone with him? That didn't seem realistic for Ty's character either. I could keep going, but overall, I feel this story could've been so much more. Instead it felt like there were missed opportunities to delve deeper with the characters and really pull the reader into the scenes. Towards the end it sped up really fast, to where it started reading more like a summary and finished with me feeling unsatisfied. I wanted more from this story. Balanced dialogue. More story. Better plots. Less out of the blue occurances, or at least ones that made sense.

This was a miss for me, unfortunately.