Firstly, thanks to Katie Lee and YA Bound Book Tours for providing a copy of the book for review as part of the tour <3
Synopsis:
"Jason Kincaid is young, hot and successful.
An All-Star outfielder for the Seattle Mariners, he finally had everything he ever wanted, including a second chance with his high school sweetheart, Megan Williams.
But their hopes for a ‘happily-ever-after’ are dashed by tragedy.
A horrific car accident wipes out most of Jason's memories. Unable to recall anything from the last fifteen years of his life, Jason is suddenly adrift, his once charmed life now in ruins.
Megan finds herself in the untenable position of having to deal with the fact that the man she’s helping to rebuild his life may look, and even act, like her beloved fiancé, but in reality, isn’t any longer.
Trying to protect herself, as well as Jason, Megan fights the attraction between them. . .to no avail. As their potent connection inevitably draws them closer, Megan wonders,
With the memories of their relationship gone, can love endure?"
An All-Star outfielder for the Seattle Mariners, he finally had everything he ever wanted, including a second chance with his high school sweetheart, Megan Williams.
But their hopes for a ‘happily-ever-after’ are dashed by tragedy.
A horrific car accident wipes out most of Jason's memories. Unable to recall anything from the last fifteen years of his life, Jason is suddenly adrift, his once charmed life now in ruins.
Megan finds herself in the untenable position of having to deal with the fact that the man she’s helping to rebuild his life may look, and even act, like her beloved fiancé, but in reality, isn’t any longer.
Trying to protect herself, as well as Jason, Megan fights the attraction between them. . .to no avail. As their potent connection inevitably draws them closer, Megan wonders,
With the memories of their relationship gone, can love endure?"
Release Date: August 1st 2013
Publisher: Self-published
Source: Review copy via tour host
Genre: Contemporary (New Adult)
My rating:
“If it was meant to be, it shouldn’t feel like a constant battle.”
There comes those rare moments in a reader’s reviewing life where one has to give a book 4+ stars even though the book actually wasn’t that great when it’s dissected and the parts analysed. It’s the whole idea of What Endures that made me really enjoy it and give it such a high rating. Usually, I take the different parts of what I think makes a good book and then take the aggregate to determine my rating, but in this case I had to ignore that precedent and take a holistic approach.
“The best advice I can give you is to look at this as a new start. A new beginning and go from there.”
What Endures begins with All-Star baseball player Jason Kincaid waking up from a coma after a car accident and his fiancé finding out that he’s forgotten the last 15 years of his life. Our female protagonist Megan Williams struggles from the very beginning with being near Jason – the doctor has explicitly told her not to tell Jason about his life/their life together as it won’t help him get his memories back, rather, it would confuse him. I could understand Megan’s battle with herself over this as she really wanted Jason to know what they are but on the other hand, she didn’t want to force his feelings or make him feel obligated to love her. She’s in love with him but she couldn’t act on any of those feelings and I felt her pain too at constantly needing to not only hide the feelings, but put distance between herself and Jason so that she wouldn’t accidentally let something slip. Frankly, it was exhausting. At others time I got completely frustrated with Megan and didn’t understand why she was withholding so much. Character-wise, I really admired Megan’s devotion to Jason and she genuinely cared about helping him recover, not making him fall in love with her again. She isn’t completely selfless though and that’s what made her real, a major part of her hiding her feelings is so she doesn’t get hurt – she’s protecting herself too. But sometimes I thought other than that, there wasn’t much else to her character.
“And yet while the eyes may have been familiar, the look and emotion in them weren’t, and that jarred her back to the harsh reality.”
I was really surprised by Jason’s character and quite pleased – but at times a little sceptical. There were moments when I thought “this guy is too good to be true”. He was really sweet, slightly cheeky and overall a really nice guy O_O to the media he’s aloof and confident but in the presence of Megan he was totally… Normal. And that was where his character confused me. Jason’s lost 15 years of his memories so he has a mind-set of a 12/13-year-old kid but he can still act like a 27-year-old and has the body of one. Obviously there are gaps. I don’t know how someone with long-term memory loss acts so I couldn’t tell if it was normal that the mind of a young teen was attracted to a 26-year-old woman… that sounds so wrong I know but it was just this nagging thought in my mind. I brushed it aside and accepted that it was normal so yeah I really liked Jason. I also liked the way Lee showed his conflicting emotions about his messed up family. At those times, the confused little boy came out and I think that really highlighted his memory loss and attempts to fill in the gaps.
“I’m so sick of everyone acting like I’m some sort of idiot who can’t handle things! I’m fucking sick of having people give me half-truths or tell me I’m not ready to hear something.”
THANK YOU KATIE LEE FOR NO LOVE TRIANGLE. Seriously thank you *bows down*. I am so sick of nearly every book I’ve read having a love triangle of sorts. Some are believable and I do like them, but others are just pointless and included for the sake of having something to write about. The romance in What Endures is straight-forward and to the blurb (another tick for me) – I got what I expected, in a good way! There is attraction but no insta-love which I thought was an amazing feat on Lee’s part. Now you might be thinking, “wait, it’s not that hard to not write insta-love” and yes this is true in most books. But What Endures was definitely a special case – two people who are lovers, one in an accident and forgets his memories and the other still in love with him… and Jason is definitely attracted to Megan. To not insta-love THAT I thought was commendable. Megan manages to hide her feelings from Jason so well, creating this chemistry between the two; in a way it was like starting a love story from scratch.
“It was one of those deliciously slow and languid kisses. The kind to revel in. The kind to savour each touch. To taste each kiss. And to get lost in the feeling.”
There were no surprises in the plot, which can be seen as a good and bad thing – for me this was definitely a good thing. If you want those angsty, depressing NA novels, this isn’t for you. If you want a book that delivers what the blurb describes, and you like said blurb, then you should definitely get this. For the most part, the plot IS the romance between Megan and Jason with Jason trying to get his memories back while Megan tries to keep her feelings at bay. But there are complications, and the relationship issues these two face can be heartbreaking – they’re essentially two people living in two different timelines. I thought the pace was perfect and I was speeding through this so quickly!
“...Haven’t you ever thought that the best things are hard because they make you value them more?”
The writing style I wasn’t very sure of; at times I felt like I was being told a lot of things but I couldn’t really tell because at other times I really enjoyed the style. It had this dream-like quality that was accentuated by the beach setting and was really lovely. However, I thought that was sort of ruined by the time jumps. It would be a chapter, then the next chapter would jump a few months or a few weeks and I thought it was unnecessary to state this in the chapter headings. Time should flow smoothly, not be staccato and stop and start at whatever intervals the author thinks just needs to be slotted in. Overall though, I thought Lee had a very quote-like style of writing which I absolutely love about books and this definitely amped it up for me – quote ALLLLLL the lines ;)
“The night air was cool and dry and carried the faintest scent of the Chesapeake Bay. He could hear the gentle lapping of the water against the shore, and there was a hypnotic musicality to it.”
Do you see what I mean when I say, if I took this apart the pieces don’t really line up to be a 4 star read? But… I DON’T CARE BECAUSE I LOVED THIS. This is the kind of book that puts a smile on my face (I also shed a few – no A LOT – of tears). The characters are sweet and thoughtful, no unnecessary angst, I get a love story in a gorgeous setting that is in the end relatable and I came out of this not only satisfied, but with heaps of lovely quotes. Lee is definitely an author to keep looking out for!
“Loving you was worth it. Worth everything.”
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Add WHAT ENDURES to Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18192351-what-endures
Buy WHAT ENDURES from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/What-Endures-ebook/dp/B00E7JO69G/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_kin?ie=UTF8&qid=1378505752&sr=8-1&keywords=what+endures+katie+lee
About Katie Lee
Katie Lee has had a lifelong love affair with books. She fell in love with her first book in the second grade and hasn’t looked back since. She first took up writing as a hobby, wanting to craft her own magical adventures, and through the love and encouragement of family and friends, decided to get serious about writing and share her stories with the world.
She currently resides in Maryland in the United States. She works for the government during the day, and her spare time is devoted to writing. She gains inspiration from all sorts of things, but mostly from the fun and adventurous trips she takes when she can. She loves hearing from her readers so drop her a note!
Find her at the following places:
Website: http://www.katieleeauthor.blogspot.com/Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7171942.Katie_Lee
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KatieLeeAuthor
I still don't get how your write so much O___O YAY for no love triangle! Most of the time, they come off as unrealistic and just sloppy anyways.
ReplyDeleteGreat review, Jaz! <33
I TALK A LOT OK? LOL <3
DeleteI loved how this didn't have a love triangle, and it would have totally been ok with one too O_O
Thanks for stopping by Mel <3