Review - Easy, Tammara Webber

He watched her, but never knew her. Until thanks to a chance encounter, he became her savior…

The attraction between them was undeniable. Yet the past he’d worked so hard to overcome, and the future she’d put so much faith in, threatened to tear them apart.

Only together could they fight the pain and guilt, face the truth—and find the unexpected power of love.

Easy follows the story of Lucas and Jacqueline, two college undergrads who are brought together by an attempted sexual assault on Jacqueline. Lucas soon discovers the events surrounding Jacqueline play a little too close to the events that almost destroyed his childhood and we watch two struggle to deal with a haunted past and a dangerous present.

While the general tone of the story is relatively dark, Webber manages to present some touching and bright moments that'll have you exhaling the sympathetic breath you didn't know you were holding (and not just at the naughty scenes).

My first impressions of Easy was that it was beautifully written in all aspects. The language was lovely, not too childish but not overly adult, the dialogue was entertaining the pace of the story flowed pretty well, and it was generally quite a nice book to read.

The one thing I did LOVE about Easy, was that, not once, did Lucas or Jacqueline say those three dreaded words! I thought that was a brilliant and mature step for Webber to make as it made their relationship that bit more chaotic. I often find there's something so final about characters in this genre saying 'I love you'. It's like those words are the answer to a simple problem, but not with Easy. The lack of those words only added to the chaotic feeling of actually falling in love.

Given the subject matter that is ever present throughout the book, it's hard not to notice the little messages of not only female empowerment, but of male empowerment, too. Usually, I get majorly turned off by subliminal messaging in books, but I didn't feel like that with Easy. I finished this book feeling proud of the decisions made, and confident that not all men are the devil! (Which a lot of women seem to think, unfortunately)

The reason I'm not giving it any more than 4 stars is that I don't feel the story line, although it flowed well, was particularly strong or unique in any way. Lucas's childhood confessions were also a little rushed for me and I didn't really feel a build up in his decision to tell Jacqueline about his past.

I'd still recommend it for any NA/mature YA readers and give it a wobbly 4 out of 5 (I'd maybe give it a 3.75 but I'm not feeling that pedantic today).