Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Review: Upside Down by Lia Riley

Upside Down
By: Lia Riley
Release Date: August 5, 2014
Series: Off the Map #1

Description:
If You Never Get Lost, You’ll Never Be Found

Twenty-one-year-old Natalia Stolfi is saying good-bye to the past-and turning her life upside down with a trip to the land down under. For the next six months, she'll act like a carefree exchange student, not a girl sinking under the weight of painful memories. Everything is going according to plan until she meets a brooding surfer with hypnotic green eyes and the troubling ability to see straight through her act.

Bran Lockhart is having the worst year on record. After the girl of his dreams turned into a nightmare, he moved back home to Melbourne to piece his life together. Yet no amount of disappointment could blind him to the pretty California girl who gets past all his defenses. He's never wanted anyone the way he wants Talia. But when Bran gets a stark reminder of why he stopped believing in love, he and Talia must decide if what they have is once in a lifetime . . . or if they were meant to live a world apart.

Book #1 in the OFF THE MAP series
 

Review:
This was definitely one of those intense and anxiety ridden love stories that keeps you enthralled from beginning to end.  These two are just so completely messed up in their own minds that they can't help but find that they fit perfectly together, well it takes some time but it happens.  

We begin our intense journey in a funny way where Talia is off to meet one friend but ends up running into Bran in a very weird and humorous way.  There is something about him that just catches her eye immediately and vice versa.  The two of them begin a very strange friendship that lingers into something stronger but still slightly care free of real intense feelings.  At least that is what they hoped to accomplish.

The deeper their friendship grows the more accepting of Talia, Bran is the more she begins to fall for him.  With all her OCD tendencies she is used to people running away from her, but when he makes it a point to go towards her, to calm her it triggers something in Talia.  Bran’s bastardness and Talia’s intensity drives this book through and through and you can’t help but wonder what the two will do next.  One minute they are living life passionately together, the next they are fighting and pulling away from one another. 

In the end I think they each need the other to complete the perfect pair.  Even with all their nuances they really do complete each other.  It was an intense journey through their love experience and I can’t wait to find out what happens next now that they have finally taken the plunge and decided to give this real love a try.


Love the cover, love the characters even the flakey crazy mother and her douche bag boyfriend, there are of course some parts I didn’t agree with (mother issues) but those needed to happen for Talia to be the person she is.  Stronger.  Love that this book took place in a different country too because that is always a fun adventure. 

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