Jolene Perry became a fast favourite of mine after The Summer I Found You (I absolutely loved that book!) which makes writing this review that much harder. I’ve always maintained though that I will always try and be as honest as I can in my reviews and so that’s what I’m going to do, no matter how painful it is for me.

As I was reading Has To Be Love I kept thinking to myself “why am I not getting in to this?” It was only as I was nearing the halfway point of the book that I realised it was because I wasn’t feeling the romance, whether it be between Elias and Clara or Clara and Rhodes. To be honest though, I don’t think it had anything to do with the author or the way the couples were written and everything to do with the fact that I think I was expecting the book to be centred more around Clara and her scars (and how she learns to accept them) than the romantic angle of it all. Although to be fair, the storyline does start to turn the focus towards the scars at about 50% into the book.

On top of that I found the pacing to be really slow! I don’t know if it’s because I’ve gotten used to reading pretty fast-paced books or because the pacing was actually slow on this one but it overshadowed everything else for me, my liking the characters and to an extent, the storyline itself. As I take a look back at the characters now I’m realising they were actually pretty interesting – as was the potential of this storyline – the pacing let it all down though.

Jolene Perry is a good author. I love her works and of course Has to Be Love is one of them. I loved the way she wrote this book. It was impossible for me to put it down and not finish it right away.

I DNF'd at 23% because I am no longer wanting to read this book. I'm totally not in the mood to read a story where a high school girl falls for her high school student-teacher. I don't care that he's only 4 years older than her.

Unfortunately, I was unable to finish reading this book. The style just wasn't for me. Hopefully, it resonated with other readers.

Double feature time! I read both of these in July 2017 and reviewed it then. I read them as arcs during my arc catch up challenge. I DNFed at The Summer I Found You at 32%. I DNFed Has to be Love at 12%. This is my honest review.

I read very little of this one, but from the opening chapters, I knew it wasn’t for me.

The second chapter of this book involves a dinner, in which a bunch of characters are introduced with very little context. They proceed to talk about how great Clara’s writing is, how great her cooking is, and…how great her future will be? I literally just read this and I’m already supressing the memories.

The point is, in the entire chapter, we read that Clara’s a great writer no less than five times. Several different people point it out at different times. Someone she literally just met points it out. The fact that she’s a good cook is pointed out at least three times.

That’s it. That’s all that happens in that chapter. So, yeah, if you have to tell me several times the same thing, then maybe…this story needs some hardcore editing.

This was a really interesting book, I'm surprised more people haven't read it. Clara was a very sad character to read about, due to the large scars on her face from a bear attack. It was really hard for her to be around or close to anybody. Which in a lot of ways, I felt sorry for her, but sometimes I just felt like she was making it worse. She had people in her life that loved her (boyfriend and dad). I don't think Clara made the best decision to help either her or anyone around her out, she could be rather self-deprecating. The ending was fine, I don't think Clara development as a character, there should've been more conversation about her learning to accept herself and appreciate all she has.

Quick review for a quick read. My thoughts on "Has to Be Love" in retrospect are a streamline of "Nope, nope, noppity, nope, nope, nope" to just about everything in this book. I tried to have so much patience for the events and narration, but after a certain point, I couldn't do it anymore. I don't think it had a clear focus of what it wanted to be as a story, which is interesting because Clara's very scatterbrained for narrative voice and that's precisely how the story comes across - meandering and repetitive. I'm really surprised how a book with a premise that potentially has a great deal of emotional impact could come across so shallow and just...wrong. It went on far longer than it should have and by the time I was finished, made me glad it was over. I felt emotionally detached by the events and it had much to do with the way it was presented alongside the unraveling of events.

Here's a summary: Clara is Mormon, has a boyfriend named Elias and lives in Alaska. Clara was brutally attacked by a bear, which killed her mother and left her with horrible scarring, including visible scars on her face. (Which I did feel for her on.) Her father clings to the church to cope, Clara criticizes her faith constantly in back and forth tangents. Clara starts growing closer to her boyfriend, who encourages her about her writing, shows her affection, seems to treat her with respect and notes her boundaries.

Clara has raging hormones that pop up at inappropriate times. Clara keeps too many secrets. Clara does not have a decisive bone in her body. (I will return to these three points shortly.)

Lo and behold enters Clara's new teacher (Rhodes), who is attending Columbia (Clara's dream school, which she's been accepted to and keeps it a secret for reasons that don't seem strong enough to hold the narrative conflict for as long as it does). Rhodes has traveled the world and graduated early which is the reason why he's so close to her age. At one point Clara's talking about how her mother was killed by a bear but quickly defers to the "OMG, my teacher's so HOT!" mentality. (I did mention Clara had raging hormones. And she repeats her feelings in the novel much like the Energizer bunny keeps going.)

But then she remembers she has a boyfriend and she wants to do more than just kiss him. But she doesn't know whether or not she wants to spend forever with Elias, even when he proposes to her (I did mention she was indecisive. And wait...marriage WHAT?) Then the story ventures in a weird love triangle go-between which has Clara's development and growth hinging on her relationship between these two guys - like having confidence in her writing, going to college, her sentiments surrounding her scars (she repeats her insecurities about her scars in every chapter - this would be something I'd be sympathetic toward if it wasn't repeated. so. much.). There are side conflicts/things she comes to terms with with her father regarding his faith, relationships (with one token woman of color mind you, who really doesn't have much to do in the novel, sadly), but ultimately this book ends up having her choose one future prospective relationship, only to turn around and realize she'd rather be with the other guy. But hey, at least she's in college thanks to said guy! And the other guy seems to be a-okay despite Clara's decisions. Huzzah!

I'm left at the end of this book giving it major side-eye and feeling empty from the experience. It felt patronizing and repetitive and didn't have a strong cast of characters or conflict to really carry it along. I did not enjoy it.

Overall score: 1/5 stars.

Note: I received this as an ARC from NetGalley, from the publisher.