Friday, June 17, 2022

Review: The Best Bad Things by Jay Crownover

  

Vesper Bell is a good girl. At least, that’s what everyone keeps telling her.

 
She was the perfect daughter. A straight-A student. The very best friend. And an adoring potential girlfriend.
 
However, when her life took an unexpected detour into darkness, suffering, and betrayal, Vesper realized being good hadn’t gotten her anywhere. An enthralled audience watched her dramatic fall from grace and clearly wanted her to crash and burn. Those she once trusted the most made it no secret that they wanted her to lose everything…and she did.
 
But all those years of being such a goodie-two-shoes built Vesper some powerful cosmic karma. On her birthday, she begged for a second chance, an opportunity to right all the wrongs and undo all the bad things she was forced to endure. She made a wish, not knowing that sometimes they really do come true.
 
Now, right before her fall, she’s back at the beginning, and she has no plans to be a good girl anymore.
 
Lucky for her, she has the perfect person to teach her how to embrace her rebellious and daring side: a boy with candy-colored hair and eyes as dark as the night sky. They were born on the same day, but that is about all the two of them have in common. Everything about him screams that he is a very bad boy, but Vesper sees the good in him.
 
He doesn’t seem to care if she’s perfect or pitiful. He keeps stepping in to save her, and he always makes her feel safe even when everything else feels uncertain. He feels real and honest when the rest of her life seems to be built on lies on top of more lies.
 
One thing Vesper knows to be absolutely true: the surprisingly sweet delinquent is the very best bad thing to ever happen to her.
 


  

What I thought about The Best Bad Things

First off, I won't be able to go into too much plot detail because that's part of the fun of this mind bending story.  I can't even start this review like I want to because I would totally spoil it for the next readers. 

Vesper is the sole narrator of this story and when the story starts, she is in a rundown hotel in The Point after a serious fall from the opposite end of town known as The Hill. She experiences a tragedy and her life implodes, sending her back in time to when she lived in that wealthy part of town.

Having a second chance means being able to right all the wrongs that were done to the people Vesper loves, and also to herself. There are plenty of juicy villains in this story -- a nasty stepsister, a brutal ex boyfriend, a wicked almost-stepmother and then there's Oscar, the one guy who has been with her from the start of this adventure.

I adored Vesper and Oscar both. Although Vesper is a very unreliable narrator,  she's just so strong and I felt her journey every step of the way.  Oscar is the best of the kind of man Jay Crownover writes and why I adore her stories -- he has a good sense of right and wrong, can walk and talk perfect bad boy, and chooses to express himself with his tattoos and colored hair. There was something about Oscar that I connected with and I just loved him and Vesper together.

I didn't see that ending coming either, and I really liked that about the story.

Overall, I thought this book merged romance, mystery and time travel elements very well into a more unique contemporary romance reading experience and returning to The Point for this was absolutely wonderful as the Point series is one of my favorites from this author.

If you are looking for a different sort of romance with a bit of a mystery, time travel and an awesome bad boy hero, you might like The Best Bad Things.




 

 

About the Author
 
 
Jay Crownover is the international and multiple New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Marked Men Series, the Saints of Denver Series, the Point Series, the Breaking Point series, the Getaway series, the Loveless, Texas series and the Forever Marked series. Her books can be found translated into many different languages all around the world. She is a tattooed, crazy haired Colorado native who lives at the base of the Rockies with her awesome dogs. This is where she can frequently be found enjoying a cold beer and Taco Tuesdays. Jay is a self-declared music snob and outspoken book lover who is always looking for her next adventure, between the pages and on the road.
 
 

 






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