Taking Chances (Taking Chances, #1)

by Molly McAdams

Anadelle Waters (Narrator)

Her first year away is turning out to be near perfect, but one weekend of giving in to heated passion will change everything.
 

Eighteen year old Harper has grown up under her career-Marine father’s thumb. Ready to live life her own way and experience things she’s only ever heard of from the jarheads in her father’s unit, she’s on her way to college at San Diego State University.

She finds herself being torn in two as she quickly falls in love with Brandon, who becomes her boyfriend—and her roommate’s brother Chase. Covered in tattoos, known for fighting in the Underground and ridiculously muscled...they’re exactly what she was always warned to stay away from, but just what she needs.

• ISBN10: 1482996375
• ISBN13: 9781482996371
• Publish Date: 4 February 2014 (first published 16 October 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperCollins
• Edition: Library Edition
• Format: Audiobook (CD)
• Duration: 13 hours and 18 minutes
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

This is a story with a lot of twist, turns, lust, loss and especially love -- in many, many forms. I cannot say I loved every event that occurred in this book, however, once I dried my tears and continued reading, I got the HEA, which is my primary motivation for reading romance novels.

There are a lot of characters to fall in love with in the book.

Harper - She applies to a college across the country in order to put a lot of distance between her marine corps father (AKA Sir) and herself. She hopes this distance will allow her to find out who she is or who is meant to be. While enjoying many new experiences, Harper finds herself in a very complicated love triangle. Very complicated and very messy.

Brandon - Super hot, super smart, super sweet, MMA fighter. Brandon and his family had experienced an extraordinary loss, which kept him from really falling in love, until he met Harper.

Chase - Super hot, super artistic, super confusing man-whore brother of her roomie and best friend. Chase liked to party and hook-up with random girls, until he met Harper.

There are many fantastic relationships and interesting dynamics in this book.
Harper and Breanna (the roomie), Harper and Chase, Harper and Brandon, Harper and Chase's housemates, Harper and Sir, Harper and Brandon's family, Harper and Chase's family, Harper and her jar head brothers. There are just so many people and in the end, it is all these relationships that really shape the story.

I will not lie, I shed many tears, but I ended up with a smile.

[Cocktails and Books]

This book has sat on my Kindle for a while, just waiting to be read. It was pushed further and further down the TBR list by other books that either needed to be read for review or were more obviously at the front of my mind for reading. It was until a friend of mine read that book and raved about it that I finally remembered it was on my Kindle and maybe I should move it to the front of the line. Now that I'm a week removed from reading it, I still feel as if I might just want to chuck my Kindle across the room when thinking about it.

The story is about eighteen year old Harper, who journeys to San Diego State University and discovers much more freedom than she ever experienced while leaving with her Marine father at Camp LeJeune. She quickly bounds with her college roommate, Brea, and enter the college party scene courtesy of Brea's brother Chase. We follow Harper as she navigates college life, including her relationships with Chase and her boyfriend, Brandon. It's about living life and taking chances, but also dealing with the consequences when things don't go exactly as planned.

I had a really hard time with Harper. Granted, she is an extremely sheltered eighteen year old, who's life existed around the marines her father trained. But I would have have thought that living around those young men, even if they were fearful of her father, would have made her a bit more worldly. Instead, when Harper gets to SDSU, she's completely out of her element and doesn't know how to fit into social situations. So it was a little strange that her relationship with Brandon started so quickly. But even more bizarre was the fact that she was so "in love" with Brandon, yet had all these feelings for Chase. Both guys were hot and any girl/woman would have been ecstatic to have either of them fighting over her, but it just seemed a little strange for a girl who had never had a boyfriend to now find herself stuck in this love triangle of her own making.

In my opinion, she truly did string both Chase and Brandon along. She loved Brandon and she just knew he was "the one", yet she wasn't willing to let go of Chase no matter what he said or did to push her away. It made me sad to think that both of these guys, who were so emotionally invested in this girl, had to be torn apart because she couldn't really follow through with what she knew in her heart she wanted.

And then the guys. Brandon was a big, tough, fighter, who was putty in Harper's hands. He loved her from the moment he laid eyes on her and would do anything for her. He was understanding when it came to her virginity and made an effort to ensure she didn't feel like he was pushing her towards having sex. He was a forever kind of guy and he made sure Harper knew he wanted her forever. Then there was Chase. He may have come off as a complete ass, but Chase was a very emotional guy when it came to Harper. He wore his heart on his sleeve and at his worse, acted like an elementary aged boy pulling the pig tails of the girl he liked. No matter how mean he was to Harper, you could tell how it devastated him and how much he wanted her. But it came to a point where I got tired of Brandon being a doormat for Harper to walk all over and Chase always being their for her when he knew she didn't feel the same way about him. It made me said for both of the guys and wanted them to find someone better.

Now the Kindle throwing part of the story comes about halfway through and it truly quite devastating. Not because of what that means for Harper, but because of what that meant for the character. After this, I really didn't care what happened to Harper and just wanted to the story to be over. Harper could whine, cry or carry on about whatever she wanted, but I was done.

There are a ton of readers out there that adore this book and Harper's journey to find her happily ever after. But for me, the events at the 50% mark took the air out of my reading sail. From that point forward, I didn't really care about any of the characters. Which is too bad, because it was a well written read. To Molly McAdams' credit, it's a nod to her as a writer to be able to evoke such an emotional response. She may not have been looking for my reaction, but it's a testament to her writing that I'm still mad over what happened a week later.

[liz089]

Read more about this review and others on my blog ! Freyja Eats Books

How I HATE this book. I haven’t read such a horrible story and main character in a while. Hell, probably not in years have I read such an awful book. When reading a book, I have to at least LIKE the main character, I don’t have to agree on every decision he or she makes of course, but this is just soooo wrong !! She is an awful person and I disliked her very much. One of the main reasons I didn’t finish it, but I felt obligated to other readers to warn them about this book.

It’s starts okay, main character Harper used to live with her father (who is a marine and apparently has no feelings or cares for her at all) and goes of to college far away from him. Understandable. So when she meets het new roommate, some party chick, she goes completely wild. Gets tight and short clothes, piercings, parties, boys. All the things she never had before.

She goes to a party at the house of the brother of her roommate and meets to cute guys. One is Chase, the player/bad guy and brother, and the other one is Brandon, a cute fighter.
So okay, she instantly goes for Brandon, but she has the hots for Chase as well. Brandon becomes her boyfriend and they are happily in love. Accept well… Harper loves Chase as well…
It can happen okay, I know that, and it doesn’t necessary have to be a bad thing. But in this case it is completely wrong.

She keeps on nagging and nagging about how hard she has it loving both of them and not wanting to hurt any of them, but in the meantime she is so f*cking selfish !!! Boehoeh, poor Harper, having two guys who love her and would do anything for her. Get over yourself.

She also became a part of roommate and Chase’s family. It being that she never had a real family sucks, and they are her new one.

But well, she and Brandon never had sex together because she wasn’t really ready for it. So one night when she is home alone at the house of the parents Chase enters (and yes she is still together with Brandon at that moment). But guess what.. THEY HAVE SEX. God, how I hated her in that moment. She even has the balls to say she didn’t feel ready for it with Brandon, but that it feels natural/good to do it with him. HOW COULD YOU !!! B*TCH !!! Brandon has been soo good for her, and that is how she repays him !
But when they are about to have sex, Chase tells her he doesn’t have any condoms. From this moment on, she became even worse and idiotic, because she said it was okay. Just let me repeat… She said it was okay to have sex without a condom. ARE YOU KIDDING ME ?!!?!! REALLY !!

So surprise, surprise.. She gets pregnant.. Of course, she is very upset and pathetic about it, but I just can’t feel sorry for her, it’s her own fault ! God, she is soooo STUPID. Do you get my point ?
She let’s her father know, and he abandons her completely (not a surprise, but kind of weird) and tells the parents. They are sooo happy for her and Chase. Meanwhile I think.. SHE CHEATED ON BRANDON BUT THAT’S OKAY ? Well apparently it is okay because NOBODY comment about it being wrong. NOBODY !!!

So she tells Brandon and he gets mad (duhuh), but still is very feeling and caring for her. No idea why… Later on she tells Chase as well and they become the perfect couple. Apparently he has been a mess without her and loves her deeply. Ugh. Happy family blabla.

During the book there are a lot of women who try to steal either Brandon or Chase away from her, with weird messages or sending nude pictures. So then enters some weird chick who works with Chase and flirts with him. Chase doesn’t see it and only has eyes for Harper, but Harper goes all paranoid and bitchy. Which, personally I find kind of hypocrite because SHE CHEATED ON BRANDON !!! But well, that doesn’t matter of course in the fantasy world Harper lives in…
One night at a party at Chase though, when Harper doesn’t come because she is very pregnant (oh and she has moved in with the family) she suddenly gets weird messages from his phone showing Chase cheating on her with the weird chick. And she goes berserk ! Completely upset and mad about him cheating. You get it, hahahahahaha, HIM CHEATING. You know what you call that ? KARMA B*TCH.

But well, Chase doesn’t remember any of it and genuine hasn’t known what happened. He was so in love with Harper and only has eyes for her that.. I think.. It would be obvious that something isn’t right. But like I was saying, she goes all berserk and hating and breaks up with him. Because you know, it is only okay when Harper cheats, not someone else… UGH !!!!

And now comes the most awful part of the book.. Chase walks out of the house after being confronted with the pictures of him cheating and goes on to prove he didn’t do it..
BY KILLING HIMSELF IN A CAR ACCIDENT !!!! WHAT. THE. FUCK. I put the book away at that moment because I wanted to throw it out of an window.

Later on, I decided I already read it so far, I should at least TRY to finish it.

So everybody is grieving him and they find out that the weird chick drugged him. (Yeah such a thing happens all the time, no prob.) At first she is depressed, because Chase is gone and she lies in bed for two weeks or so. But after a while, she starts thinking about Brandon again. Because of course, she never stopped loving him. *Pardon me?* Yeah that’s right, she never stopped loving Brandon. You know, the guy YOU CHEATED ON with Chase and got pregnant with !! The one you left and hurt.

And the worst part is, the family COMPLETELY supports her, they say it’s good and all right. They even push her towards Brandon. WTF ? Who would do that ? Chase just DIED !!! He would roll over in his grave knowing how they disrespect him. You should grieve and remember him, not start dating your ex again after two months. That’s just horrible ! What kind of awful person would do that ?
But one would think, at least Brandon is not stupid enough to fall for that again. Well he does. Of course he does. Because he still loves her and sees the baby as his own. UGH !!!!!!! He is way to understanding, he deserves soooo much better !!!

I stopped reading after this, it felt soooo wrong and I didn’t even wanted to know how it ended.

I did read some other reviews and found out they got married and had more children blabla, who cares… The only part that made me a bit mad was that they referred to Chase later on to his son as “ Uncle Chase” How can you do that ????

HOW ?!?! How can you write this bullshit and think it is okay ? Because you know what, IT IS NOT OKAY. IT IS NOT GOOD. ITS HORRIBLE AND WRONG !!!!

Rating
This is the worst book I have read in a long time, and it does not deserve any Freyja’s, so I will give it a ZERO. I was in a complete rage after reading this one. It was so wrong and horrible, just no. Don’t. Believe me.

[Jack]

Yeah....Can't finish this. It's so long and now its boring. I know what happens in the rest of the book and I'm not gonna take it.

I was gonna review this, but I just can't. It's not worth it. Its a mess. How can you move on so quickly from one love to the next. I did like that she called her baby Gummy Bear, thought that was pretty cute.

Only got to 60%.

[Ashley]

BookNook — Young Adult book reviews

This is one of the most infuriating books I have ever read, and Harper takes the prize for the most un-likeable, aggravating, immature, selfish, thoughtless, downright stupid character in literature. That's right, I think she tops Ana in Fifty Shades of Grey — that is no small feat.

With a "contemporary new adult romance" label and an average rating on Goodreads of 4.01 stars (with over 10,000 ratings, mind you), I thought this book would be a slam dunk. I thought I would love it; no questions asked. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a black sheep here... I guess I should have known that this book was about cheating and that that subject matter alone would turn me off this book. But apparently I'm a moron. Either that, or I thought it would be done in such a way that I could overlook or accept.

I'm basically going to break down the plot of this story and critique it piece by piece. I might include some minor spoilers (for example, I'll reveal what that "heated passion" is all about in the blurb), but any spoilers I reveal will take place in the first half of the book. Anything else will be clearly labelled in spoiler tags.

Taking Chances and I got off on the wrong foot almost immediately. At the beginning of the book, we only have a teeny tiny introduction to Harper before the romance hits us full force. The problem with that was I didn't get to know Harper as a character before the romance dominated the book. And if I didn't know her enough to like her, then how the hell did those guys know her enough to like her? Taking Chances has a horrible case of "every boy in a 10 mile radius falls in love with the simple, plain, virgin, and think she's SO AMAZING." But she's not... At that point in the book (and actually throughout the ENTIRE book), all we see of her is blushing, "ducking her head", and running off to hide in bathrooms when she gets embarrassed. Harper is not independent or intelligent or snarky or funny or even likeable. She's not even interesting.

Up to a certain point, I was mostly okay with Brandon. He did come on a little too strong too quickly, for how little he actually knew Harper, but he wasn't so bad. Chase, on the other hand, was absolutely RIDICULOUS. The book begins and we learn that Chase is a blunt, rude, foul-mouthed playboy, who has a different girl in his bed every night. Actually, scratch that. A different girl on his couch every night, because girls are not even allowed on his bed. Period. But then, of course, Mr. Playboy takes one look at Harper and immediately changes his ways, because she is SO AMAZING!! (Again, why...?)

At this point of the book, he had met Harper a grand total of two times, and had never actually had a full conversation with her. Their conversations only consisted of things like her yelling at him to let her go (because he was grabbing her arm so hard that he was leaving BRUISES), and her reminding him what a man whore he is. But then, after those pitiful conversations, he is LITERALLY kissing the ground she walks on, and making remarks like this:

"You need someone who will cherish you, protect you and take care of you. Someone that realizes they'd never be able to find another you in the world, no matter how hard they looked."

"You're amazing Harper. There will never be anyone good enough for you."

"I've never met anyone like you."

"There's just something about you that makes guys go crazy wanting to take care of you."

Where did those even come from??? He doesn't even know Harper.. hell, I don't even know Harper. They had never had a real conversation, other than to point out the fact that she is so "PG" because she had never kissed or slept with a guy before. So what does he even love about her? Given the lack of evidence, I can only conclude that he 'loves' her because she's hot... And that does not a romance make.

But the problem with this book was that it wasn't just Chase. Everyone felt this way about Harper. After like one date, Brandon was also kissing Harper's feet:

"We just met, but I already know there's something different about you, and I'm not about to ruin this by rushing into things. I plan on taking my time with you. Those girls, yeah I had relationships with them, but all they were was a distraction for me. I wanted to feel something other than being pissed that my dad was gone for good. I didn't...[..] They weren't you Harper."

Again... why? I still have not figured it out.

So anyway, Harper and Brandon start dating, and Chase sulks in the corner. He gives up drinking and girls because he's too busy feeling sorry for himself since he can't be with Harper. Poor him, his life is over. To be fair, Harper and Brandon's relationship was pretty cute. I just couldn't get that invested in it because it progressed SO quickly and was extremely insta-love-y. But at least Brandon was a perfect gentlemen, unlike Chase—the royal douchebag.

Then it's Christmas time and Brandon takes Harper to meet his family.

"I'd overheard him talking to his mom telling her he thought I was 'the one', and I couldn't help but smile at thoughts of our future together."

Again, pretty sweet. But unfortunately, Harper immediately ran out on him to go sleep with Chase. Poor Brandon is talking to his mom about how amazing Harper is and how much he loves her, and Harper has to go cheat on him because for some reason, she's obsessed with Chase... the guy who left BRUISES on her arm. Oh, and apparently she was sooooo hot for him that she insisted they have sex without a condom.

"I don't have any condoms here Princess."
"I don't care."

Side note: Yes, Chase does indeed call her 'Princess' all the time. How lame.

This is when I just lost any and all sympathy for Harper. I could no longer even try to relate to her, and I sure as hell stopped giving a crap about her. She made two RIDICULOUSLY bad decisions in one go. She cheated on her amazing, super sweet boyfriend so she could lose her virginity to a douchebag (who also happened to be one of Brandon's best friends), and she didn't use protection.

So after this, Chase is like, "That was awesome sex! So are we dating now? Are you going to break up with Brandon?" and of course, Harper is like, "No, I can't hurt Brandon like that. I'm going back to him. Please leave me alone and give me space." Maybe you should have thought about that 'not hurting him' thing BEFORE you decided to cheat on him??? But the best part about this particular sentence, is that she very, very clearly told Chase to give her space. So, Chase does. But apparently that was the WRONG move.

After a couple weeks of not hearing from Chase (and yes, Harper did go running back to Brandon), Harper gets super upset. Why is Chase avoiding her??? Why won't he text her??? Why won't he hang out with her???

"You expected me to think you still wanted me after you've completely avoided me for a month?"
He threw his arms out, "I was giving you time! You asked me to give you time!"
"I didn't want you to avoid me like the plague, I wanted you to fight for me. To show me that you loved me like you said you did."

"God I had to stop asking him to give me time, he flat out disappears when I do. Guys need to understand that sometimes, we mean exactly the opposite of what we say."

You know when guys talk about their crazy, psycho girlfriends who are always raging and hormonal? This is Harper. Chase follows her instructions and leaves her alone, but all she does is complain that he's avoiding her?? That he "left her"?? And she blames it on HIM and says that he should know better, and he should read her mind and be able to realize that she actually wants him to fight for her?? Good lord, woman! If that's what you want, you need to tell him that! Don't assume he'll be able to read your mind.

The rest of what I have to say occurs after the half-way point in the book, so I'll put those in spoiler tags.

(show spoiler)[I was furious when Harper actually had the nerve to get angry at Chase for cheating. I know he didn't actually cheat, but when Harper thought he had, she was actually pissed. As far as I'm concerned, a cheater has no right to be upset when they're cheated on. Ever. That's Karma for you, bitch.

When Chase died, I laughed. I seriously laughed my ass off. We have a complicated love triangle, so what do we do? Kill off one of the guys. This means Harper doesn't actually have to choose which one she wants to be with. Great.

But the most ridiculous part about it, for me, was the fact that everyone got over Chase's death so quickly. After a while, even I forgot it happened. I never saw Bree get upset, I never saw Chase's parents break down, I never even saw Brandon get upset. Yes, Harper was upset for a little bit, but ultimately her reaction was so quick and fleeting that I completely forgot about Chase in the entire second half of the book. It's like he never existed.

And on a slightly different note, I couldn't believe how ridiculous it was that everyone still ADORED Harper after she cheated on Brandon. Even Brandon's parents just brushed it off. "Oh you broke our son's heart? No problem! Come in for a hug!!!!" And then Chase's parents didn't care when she hopped out of Chase's bed and went back to marry Brandon right after Chase died. I guess it all ties back into the fact that Harper is so perfect and amazing and 'one of a kind'.] (hide spoiler)

The worst part about this book is that it's riddled with bad decisions.. but not just that.. it's that Harper makes all these bad decisions but she NEVER learns from them ((show spoiler)[After getting pregnant, I thought she would have learned that unprotected sex was a huge no-no. But nope. She does it again and gets pregnant AGAIN!] (hide spoiler) ); instead, she gets rewarded for them. That's the worst part. At the end of the book, all her bad decisions still land her with a perfect life, despite all the people she has hurt and wronged and betrayed. Since she's so amazing, none of them care, and they're all way too quick to forgive and forget.

I need to quote another reviewer here because what she said is brilliant:

We should be able to sympathize but not like or forgive the main character when she does this, and we should feel for the men she cheated on. But TAKING CHANCES acts like it's not a problem to do these things.

In fact, it glorifies it. Teenage pregnancy? Check that, or check it twice, actually. Teenage marriage? Check. Slut-shaming? Check. Adultery? How about a check for that.
—Oceana Fern {Assorted Insanity}

I almost feel like Taking Chances is a book dedicated to all the 'poor', 'misunderstood' cheaters in the world. Like, as if they have such horrible lives, so this book was written to highlight how their lives should go instead. Or so all cheaters can read this book and sympathize with each other and understand each other. I read Harper's reasoning, but all I saw was a stupid cheater trying to justify her actions.

"I was more in love with Chase than I realized, but I couldn't live without Brandon."

Ultimately, I hated that this book had a happy ending. It actually upset me, because I felt like Harper didn't deserve it. She made so many mistakes and I didn't feel like she learned from any of them. She acted like a stupid, immature child, but she got to walk away blissfully and happily, surrounded by all these rich minions people who worshipped her.

What sucks, is that the end of this book did have a sweet romance. If it weren't for the non-existent character personalities, the bad decisions, the love triangle (let's cut that out completely), the random love square that pops in and out, and probably a few other factors, then this could actually have made a cute story. Give Harper a fierce, charming, intelligent, independent personality, pair her with Brandon, and I might be game.

There were so many problems with this book, so many bad messages, and ultimately it just drove me crazy. After the half way point, I disliked it so much that I went from rolling my eyes and raging, to just laughing at the stupidity of it all. And believe it or not, there are still a million other things that are wrong with this book that I didn't even cover in the review. I figured my review was lengthy enough as it is.

Don't mind spoilers? Check out this Taking Chances comic I made! You won't even have to read the book!


(Click to Enlarge)

[Rowena]

Taking Chances follows Harper as she journeys from her military home in North Carolina and moves across country to attend college in San Diego. I went into this book wanting to like it and I didn’t hate it but there were times when I thought I wasn’t going to finish this one.

So Harper moves to San Diego and immediately she gets along with her dorm roommate. Her roommate Bree has a brother who’s like in a fraternity and is throwing a party so Bree talks Harper into going. Harper has grown up on a Marine military base so she’s been around guys her whole life but this is new waters for her because the guys here aren’t like brothers to her. Her father is not their boss so these guys don’t have to be nice to her…but they are. Except for Chase. Chase is Bree’s brother and a total badass playboy. Different girl every night and he doesn’t hide his lifestyle from anyone.

Of course at first glimpse, Harper hates Chase. Yeah, he’s hot but he knows it and the way that he uses girls as little playthings completely turns Harper off so she’s written him off…which pisses him off. Bree and Harper are staying at Chase’s house which I thought was completely weird, since Chase is the older brother and he’s letting his sister Bree (who’s a freshman in college) sleep at his frat house with a bunch of horny college dudes? Hmm…and what I found even more weird is that Harper slept with Chase that same night. They didn’t have sex but they slept together in the same bed which I found odd since Harper is a virgin and Bree told everyone. Chase, the biggest horndog of them all sleeps with Harper and nothing happens?

Hmm, again.

So after that weekend, Harper meets Brandon…one of Chase’s roommates and instantly, they like each other. Brandon is the opposite of Chase. He’s hot and he’s nice and he wants to wait until Harper is ready to take their relationship to the next level. Whatever Harper wants, Brandon is all for. So they get together, they become a couple…even though Harper still has these effed up feelings for Chase.

I get that she can’t explain her feelings for Chase and I get that she was broken up about those feelings because of things with Brandon but this story just kept getting more and more bizarre with each passing page.

So Brandon and Harper are together but Chase has decided that he wants to be with Harper too. Chase is a hot head and he does and says things that kind of scare people but at heart, he’s a big softy. Brandon knows about Chase’s feelings for Harper and he isn’t a fan so they fight…time after time after time, they fight over Harper. It doesn’t matter that Harper is with Brandon, Chase wants her and a part of Harper wants him too.

The thing that I couldn’t understand was why all of these people seemed to fall in love with Harper and want to protect her from the world. I couldn’t see what was so great about her that so many guys wanted to be with her. Wanted to fight for her hand. There wasn’t anything about her that stood out (except that she was a virgin but even that didn’t stand out since I know a lot of Mormon girls who don’t put out) that would explain why she was in hot demand. Because on top of Brandon and Chase, there was Carter too. Carter, the boy from back home who was stationed under Harper’s father’s command. Carter, who moved across country to be with her. She reminded me of Bella Swan. Nothing really spectacular and yet everyone wanted to be with her.

She pissed me off a lot throughout this book because she was so hot damn selfish and just over the top “good”. She was such a snot to Chase that I kept disliking her more and more as the story progressed. She loves both of these guys but she doesn’t want to hurt Brandon because he’s been nothing but nice to her and he loves her but she was always okay with hurting Chase and wondering why he was so hot and cold with her. It was killing him to be around her and the way that she just didn’t see it made me want to punch her in the throat. Oh, poor me…Chase is being mean to me at school but I have no idea why. I’ll just start going to his family days and hope that he’ll be nice to me there, even though I’m always going to choose Brandon, I’m going to continue to usurp Chase’s family days with HIS family and then when he stops coming to HIS family days, I’m going to wonder why he hates me so much that he doesn’t ever want to see me.

Ugh.

My favorite character in the whole story was probably Chase. I liked him the most because he was the most honest about everything. About his feelings for Harper. About his dislike for Brandon. About his weaknesses and then we get to the middle of the story and I thought I was truly and completely done with the story. I couldn’t believe what happened, how it happened and then the truth about what really happened. After that happened, I truly and completely hated Harper. I didn’t think she deserved a happy ending but because she’s the main character, of course she got one.

I didn’t even like Brandon even though I’m supposed to like him because he was such a pushover. For someone who’s such a tough guy, I hated that he kept coming back to Harper. After everything she put him through, after all of the fights he got into because of her and then the whole she wasn’t ready to have sex with him and then what she did, I couldn’t believe he went back to her. After all of the crap that he went through because of her, he went back.

By the end of the book, I was reading it so that I could close the book and put these characters out of my head. I had to finish it so that I could completely move on from the book because I really just couldn’t like any of them….and at the end, I was still pissed off about Chase. So did I like this one? It had its moments but for the most part, nope.

[Kelly]

I was utterly disappointed at a few of the reviews that openly contain spoilers, with no warning whatsoever. Killjoys.

I really don't know how I feel about this book. Half way through, I felt like putting it down and walking away, as it took an emotional turn. But I read through it and it just felt so ridiculous in places. Harper really frustrated and annoyed me and left me shaking my head, wishing she would discover birth control.

[Raven]

Review originally posted at my blog

Harper grew up with her father, a career Marine, after her mother died. Her father was rather tough on her, treating her more like a soldier than his child. Deciding that she wants to break out and live her own life, she chooses a college across the country. Her new roommate immediately takes her under her wing and helps her figure out who she is. She quickly finds herself falling for her roommate's brother Chase, who seems like the worst guy in the world for her, but the one she wants the most. She meets Chase's roommate Brandon shortly after and finds her heart split in two as she also falls for him. They would both do anything for her, even stepping aside to make sure she is happy.

I want to say first off, that this is a tear-jerker. Don't read this outside of the house, people will think you are a blubbering mess. Make sure you have tissues handy. At about midway through, you will need them. I got to the point where I was crying so hard, from the good points and the bad, that I had to stop and wipe the tears from my eyes or blow my nose about every three pages.

I really liked Chase and Brandon. Even when they were being stupid or aggressive, I loved them. They are two wonderful men, and you get to the point where you really want Harper to have both of them. Obviously, she can't truly have both of them, and the "solution" to this problem was just.. yeah. Tissues. I refuse to spoil it.

Harper I wasn't crazy about at first. I mean, I can understand her breaking out like she did, but I felt like she jumped into things rather quickly. It's one thing to indulge, but it is another to forget common sense, and I felt like she had. I ended up liking her, it was hard not to, but she irked me at first.

The story is fabulous and tragic. Some of it seemed rather predictable, but it was told in a way that made that acceptable. You wanted to keep reading. The characters and writing were engaging enough that a predictable plot was nothing.

Most people who recommended this to me did so because of my love for Easy by Tammara Webber. I think I cried harder for Taking Chances but I liked Easy more. A fabulous novel and I highly recommend it.

[chemicalscream]

This book broke my heart and pissed me off like the opportunist. WHY???