Has to Be Love

My favorite book ive read this summer, I didnt think any book could top "The summer I found you", but this one did! Ms. Perry is an amazing author who knows how to draw her audience in.

This is a book about choices and growth. Sometimes we make decisions out of our fear and need for safety. But as we grow wiser, we see that in order to grow we need to take risks, we need to make mistakes. I thought Clara experienced real growth in her journey.

I loved her relationship with Cecily. I always love strong best friends. I liked Elias, too. He definitely wasn't perfect, but his reactions were real.

I really disliked Rhodes. The idea that he liked her despite the fact that he was her teacher skeeved me out regardless of his age. I also thought he was often really condescending toward her, her town, her reading choices. Ultimately, this book was okay. I'd recommend it because it shows that it's okay to have doubts and that our decisions aren't set in stone and that's okay.

Has to Be Love proves that following your heart and believing in yourself are the keys to true happiness.

Several things I love

1) Clara. She's spunky, funny, and a tad indecisive. I admit at times I wanted to yell and talk some sense into her but that didn't stop me from loving her. I also completely empathize with her about how she feels about the scars on her face.

2) Elias. He's an absolute sweetheart and cares so much about Clara. He would honestly do anything for her

3) Rhodes. He's the man of adventure and believes that life should be all about living outside the comfort zone. He also cares so much about Clara and is very blunt and direct.

4) The premise of the story. It's so intriguing and it drew me in immediately when I started reading it.

Overall I love How to Be Love and I highly recommend this book to everyone because it is such a worthwhile read.

Great romantic read! Clara is on the edge of her adult life and trying to decide which path to travel... safe with the boyhood friend/love she has grown up with or off on an adventure to NYC to follow her dreams (and the new man in her life). This story was great to read because of the choice Clara made for herself, not others. I liked the way she dealt with her issue (though some took longer than others) and I look forward to seeing where she ends up (hoping for another book!)

Another book down! I started "Had to be Love" by Jolene Perry this morning at about 7:30 and I am already finished! It was a page turner for sure! The main character, Clara, is amazing. She wasn't a goody-goody but also not a bad girl and I found her to be totally relatable with her emotions and actions. I love reading a book where the lead character makes mistakes and has emotions similar to what the average young woman feels. I hate when authors create a character that is just a little too perfect and ends up making the reader feel like he/she isn't good enough. While reading this story I felt every single emotion Clara was feeling and got so sucked in to the story that I almost cried right along with her a few times! I am really hoping for a sequel and I am beyond pleased with this book!

Has to Be Love is a YA releasing in September and one worth putting on your list. Clara is an aspiring writer who lives in Knik, Alaska - which sounds to be in the middle of absolutely nowhere - with a dream of going to Columbia University. She has a lovely sounding boyfriend, Elias, a doting and supporting father and an apparently strong writing talent.

What she also has is a scarred face from the bear attack that took her mother's life.

When the story opens, we find out quickly that Clara got early acceptance to Columbia but has told no one. Her plan is to defer for a year so that she has time to go to Seattle and get treatment for the scars from a doctor she read about on the internet. That's the plan. The plan is perfect and the plan will work.

Well, what 17-year-old Clara doesn't realize, but most readers do is that plans actually rarely work exactly that way and the complications to the plan she encounters are what drive this story.

Complication the first: Elias has plans that want to keep Clara in Knik and no idea that she wants to haul off for New York for four years. Complication the second: the doctor isn't a miracle peddler and it looks like the scars are more permanent than she anticipated. And complication the third - the most significant: the new student teacher in Knik, Rhodes Kennedy.

Rhodes is finishing up his MFA at Columbia and appears to be a bit of a commitmentphobe - not only to relationships, but to life. He finishes degrees and that's fantastic, but he never plants roots. Ever. He also doesn't really appear to understand boundaries and I'll just leave that comment there. Homeboy is still a child, even though he's not and we all know people like that.

And here's our Clara, stuck in all of these complications and has somehow convinced herself that she needs to talk to no one about it all. She shares somethings with Rhodes but not all, some things with her best friend, but not really that much. She's decided the scars have made her a fully deficient human and that until she gets them fixed, emotional intimacy is off the table. I would imagine that's not an unlikely reaction to getting mauled by a bear and loosing your mother in one foul swoop.

Another major aspect of this book is Clara's Mormon faith. I would have liked this explored a little bit. The book reads like the author has a great knowledge of the Mormon religious system - and she may - but her readers probably don't. I have degrees in religion and I was still having to Google some of the phrases. There was just a little too much assumption that people would know what this meant and how serious it was and how it really would affect how Clara made her decisions. If that had been explored more, this book would be much stronger for me. But, as I frequently say, we all come to books with different backgrounds and for different reasons. From a quick scan through this book's page on NetGalley, few other readers were bothered by it like I was. Religion is my profession, so I twig with that stuff, in total fairness to Perry.

As it's YA, Clara does find clarity and make decisions at the end of the book. It all ended a little abruptly for my taste, making the balance of the narrative a bit off, but when I was 15, this book would have been perfect

I’ve always loved reading anything by Jolene Perry. She knows how to bring you into a story and keep you there until the minute you finish the book and this was no different. There are many choices you need to make in life and its how you make those choices that matter most. You can’t think of anyone else sometimes these choices you have to make, have to be for you and not everyone around you. This is what Has to Be Love is all about. Choices and learning to love yourself.

Clara has been through a lot in her short lifetime, but now that she is getting ready to graduate high school and move on with her life, or at least hope to move on things become more difficult for her. She has added anxiety in her life because when she was younger she was attacked by a bear (she lives in Alaska, so totally possible). Of course her scars are not only visible to her but to everyone around her because it’s on her face and this is what is holding her back. Her entire life since she’s had them she hasn’t learned how to deal with people’s reactions to them and has never felt comfortable about them. You know that whole love thyself, its not something she subscribes to. It’s tough I can only imagine but this book explores her many decisions, including that of Elias.

Elias, he’s Clara’s boyfriend, and quite honestly sounds like a really perfect guy not only for her but for anyone. He is sweet, thoughtful and only wants forever with Clara but she’s not ready. Decisions, decisions, there are so many decisions to be made. In comes an outsider who really tips her off the straight and narrow. She doesn’t know how to handle everything and starts to make the wrong decisions in life. It’s entertaining to watch. And I can completely hear her inner struggle with her life, her faith and her future. This book isn’t about love, this book is about finding yourself and being happy with yourself. Some people just tend to get in the way or help you along the way.

I really have to say that I’m completely rooting for Elias in the end whether that’s what is going to happen or not I still think he’s the sweetest book boyfriend ever. So back to the decisions that need to be made, all her life Clara has wanted to go to Columbia like her mother and she finally has the opportunity, only time will tell if she will follow through (well that and you have to read the book).

There were a lot of great coming of age bits in this book that were put together quite nicely and not everything will be perfect and rosy and will work out in the end. Sometimes you have to let go to move on and be happy with yourself. Overall I loved the characters, the setting and all the situations because they are real and believable and made you connect with everything and everyone at once. I felt like I was in Alaska on that 4 wheeler checking out the house that was being built. It’s all right there in my mind because it was described so beautifully.

Love the cover, think it’s absolutely adorable and I would pick it up in a minute. It’s cute and I think what Clara has with Elias, well it just Has to Be Love!

As a writer, I really loved the romance in this book. It was written well and quite convincingly. I also loved that our MC has an injured face, but that she learns to deal with the stares and questions.

Beautifully heartwarming

Has To Be Love was a different kind of story. The Heroine isn't your typical beautiful, has it all type of character.

Clara has scars on her face from a bear attack when she was 12 years old. She hides behind them I think. They hold her back from doing what she really wants to do.

She lives in a small town in Alaska with dreams of going to college in New York. She has a plan that she wants to stick to, but then enters Rhodes. Clara has been with Elias FOREVER. So when this new guy comes into her house to have dinner with her and her dad she can't help but to feel drawn to him.

I think Has To Be Love is definitely a realistic story. She's a typical teenager who wants to travel the world, and fit in with a crowd.

Clara is a Mormon and sometimes she doesn't like the rules.. especially when she really gets into kissing Elias. She's made a vow to save it for marriage.. when things heat up.. she really dislikes her beliefs.

I thought this was going to be a love triangle type book, but it wasn't.

This is my first book by Jolene Perry and I'm already looking at her other stuff!

I received this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher via NetGalley. This in no way impacted on my view.

Has to Be Love was a nice, and enjoyable story. When she was younger, Clara survived a bear attack which killed her mother, but no unscathed. She was left with scars running across her face, her shoulder, and her back. She has felt disfigured and ugly ever since that has happened, and is basically putting her life, and future, on hold until she can have cosmetic surgery to reverse the damage. Her biggest dream is to study at Columbia. When she is accepted, she doesn't know what to do. Should she defer a year, have the surgery, then go to New York? And what does she do about her long time boyfriend, who believes they'll be together, forever, and she has no plans of leaving the state at all? These issues all come to a head when student teacher, Rhodes, himself a student at Columbia, arrives, and makes her question everything.

First things first, I had a few issues with this book, the biggest being that Clara was about to put her life on hold for her boyfriend. For someone who has dreamed of being a writer all her life, and studying on the other side of the country, I couldn't believe she was going to forget all that for some guy.

The ending was something that really helped the book, and I'm glad that events turned out the way it did. It's just a nice, contemporary book, one that was neither good, nor bad. It had a nice protagonist, an angst filled plot, and fun side characters. It's one I'd recommend for someone who just wants an easy, cute read.