Harder by Robin York ♥♥♥.75

 

Harder by Robin York is the follow up to Deeper. I’m going to try and keep this fairly free of spoilers, but if you haven’t read Deeper then I would avoid the rest of this review.

At the end of Deeper, West is leaving Caroline to go home and help take care of his sister. West doesn’t plan on seeing Caroline again; he’s not coming back to college. Harder begins with Caroline rushing to West’s side as he deals with a family crisis. He didn’t ask her to be there, and he doesn’t hide it. West is doing everything he can to push Caroline away, but she loves West and isn’t willing to give up on him.

I have very mixed feeling about this story. We get to see so much growth from West and Caroline throughout the story. I was very happy to see the natural way they came into adulthood. And obviously, I really loved these characters. For the most part, they felt like real people.

But I had a difficult time wrapping my head around Caroline’s persistence to stick by West’s side and her willingness to put up with so many awful things in an attempt to get back together with him. It seemed real and believable, but Caroline seemed thoroughly blinded by her love. I kept thinking, “Why does she keep doing this to herself?”

The sex scenes were also a bit explicit. Something I also felt in the first book. It wasn’t really about what was happening, but rather the language used to describe it. As opposed to the making it feel as if two people were really being brought together is a display of love, it felt more that it was about the action itself. I didn’t really like that, and I was glad there weren’t that many sex scenes.

The book has a great story, which trumps the things I didn’t enjoy as much. I would say read the story, but know that you are getting yourself into one of the most raw and gritty romance stories (that I have ever read). Enjoy, and let me know what you think!  

Harder on Goodreads

Deeper by Robin York ♥♥♥♥.5

I bought Deeper by Robin York because there was a great deal and it sounded like an interesting story. I have so many feelings about this book. I even tried sleeping on it to help me figure everything out, but really, I think it’s good to find a book that makes me feel unsure and feel so many different things.

Deeper starts on the say Caroline fins out her ex, Nate, posted pictures of her online (pictures he took of them having sex when they were together.). For obvious reasons, this sets Caroline spiraling. She hears the voices of all the disgusting guys who have seen her pictures, pictures they leave awful comments about. She can’t sleep at night, and spends her nights driving around her college town. All of this leads her to West. Everything seems to lead her to West.

This story was gritty, raw, sexy, and so unexpected. The people felt real. West didn’t keep many of his dirty thoughts to himself. We heard the voices Caroline heard in her head. And the relationship between Caroline and West was always on a precipice. I never knew if they were going to move away from the cliff to safety or fall off and cease to exist together.

I loved it because I didn’t know what was going to happen, and their feeling for each other felt like everything.  And it made me so angry that so many things were keeping them apart.  It was as if life or destiny didn’t want them together.

And the end? Ugh. The end was hard to handle. I don’t think it’s bad to have a book end in a way that’s unexpected. It made me feel so many things.  I really enjoyed that Deeper was too steamy, so real, made me furious, happy, then sad. I am so looking forward to reading Harder so I can see what happens next. Give this book a read (be warned it’s heavier on sex than the books I usually read). It was amazing. So awesome. 

Deeper on Goodreads