The Vincent Boys (The Vincent Boys, #1)

by Abbi Glines

Tired of trying to live up to the expectations of her popular boyfriend, Sawyer, Ashton finds herself attracted to Sawyer's cousin, Beau, who, despite not wanting to hurt his cousin, finds Ashton irresistable.

Beau loves his cousin like a brother, so the last thing he wants to do is make a move on Sawyer's girl, even though he has been in love with her forever. The plot contains profanity and sexual situations.

• ISBN10: 1442485264
• ISBN13: 9781442485266
• Publish Date: 30 October 2012 (first published 1 February 2012)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

Rating: 4.5 stars

Love triangles are never easy and this one had some Jerry Spring stuff thrown in to boot.

Ashton, Beau and Sawyer were a tight knit group of friends since they were 5 years old. They had a dynamic and it worked: Ashton and Beau made mischief and Sawyer cleaned up after them. Things changed when they started high school. Sawyer and Ashton starting dating and Ashton "grew up", leaving behind her wild antics and also, Beau. Three years later, she can no longer deny her true self and that is when all the drama begins.

I pretty much devoured this book. I am a sucker for good characters and they were there. Ashton played like a really conflicted girl, but she always knew what she wanted. She was sweet, sassy, sexy and I totally loved when she would just speak her mind. Her interactions with Beau and Grana were my favorite. Speaking of Grana -- she was fabulous! So much spunk and life. I totally wanted her to adopt me. And then there was Beau. He knew Ashton and her heart so well, he was able to read her and anticipate her needs. He was not the Beau that everyone expected when he was with Ashton and I loved that she was able to bring that out of him. He loved fiercely and protected what was his. --Swoon--

Oh, the heart wants what the heart wants, but the mind always gets in the way. The toughest parts for me were when Ashton was trying to deny her true feelings and keep the status quo. I just wanted to smack her!

This book gave me so many feels. I laughed, I cried (you'll see what I mean), I fumed, I swooned. As always, any book that evoked strong feelings from me always gets a good rating and is a worthy read.

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

I have been super excited to read The Vincent Boys since I first heard about Abbi Glines when I discovered New Adult. I'm so happy to say they didn't disappoint!

When they were younger, Ashton, Beau and Sawyer were best friends and were always together. But then they got older, and things changed; Ash became Sawyer's girlfriend, and her friendship with Beau suffered because of it. This summer, Sawyer is away on holiday with his family, and Ash thinks it's about time she tried to fix her friendship with Beau. But Beau now has a reputation; he's the town's bad boy, and a good little preacher's girl like Ashton shouldn't be anywhere near him. But now they've started hanging out, Ash can't seem to stay away. Beau is hot, and Ash is feeling things she hasn't felt before. This good girl is about to do something drastic - but what will happen when Saywer returns?

I loved The Vincent Boys! Oh my gosh, it was so good! It's such a sweet story, because it's all based on strong feelings. It's told from both Ash and Beau's points of view, and yes, Beau has a reputation, but he hasn't had the best childhood, and when it comes to Ash... he'd kill anyone who hurt a hair on her head. He loves her, he has always loved her, but then she started going out with Sawyer. Sawyer and Beau are as close as brothers and have such a strong bond, so he was hardly going to get in their way. But it was difficult to keep being friends when Ash started to change from the fun, reckless, mischievous girl he knew into Little Miss Perfect. But now Sawyer is gone, it's hard to stay away from her when she won't stay away from him. He's playing with fire, he knows this, but he could finally get what he's always wanted: Ash. I loved Beau, he was the sweetest guy, and so flirty! He's in constant turmoil, because he loves his cousin, but he loves Ash too.

Ash.. wow. I liked Ash, but that girl has some serious issues. She is constantly trying to be the perfect girl because she's with the perfect guy. She's always trying to make sure she's worthy of Sawyer, to the point where she kind of loses who she is. Yet she thinks of the side of herself that doesn't want to clean her father's church all the time, and doesn't want to be do-gooding, who wants to do something exciting as bad; that side of her is bad, and she must force it away, because if she's bad, she'll lose Sawyer. But while he's away, she finds she can relax a little, especially when she's with Beau, who accepts her for who she is. Which is why she finds it so easy to just give in with him, because he doesn't judge and she feels so free, so herself.

I didn't have a problem with the fact that she was cheating on her boyfriend, which I find odd. If anything, I Was urging her too, because this guy who she has to be someone else for? What?! Then you meet him, and he's not an orge, yet I still didn't have a problem. This makes me worry about what it says about me - I am so against cheating, you have no idea - but maybe because it's fiction and not real, and because it was based on real feelings, I can just push it aside? I don't know, but it was weird. But the romance was so sweet, and the aftermath... well, it was interesting!

Now, the sex. There is some graphic sexual content in this book, but it's not as bad as I was expecting. I actually thought this was the original, until I was told that no, this is with the added sex scenes (For anyone confused - Hot Key Books physical books and the uncut eBook - both with the black and white covers - are the graphic versions. The eBooks with the same covers but in colour are the originals Glines published). It's not that bad. It's not chock full of sex, the focus is still on the romance, and really, a line is drawn on how much we actually get to see. As I said above, the eBooks with the coloured covers are the versions she published, so the new uncut versions are as well as not instead of, and we can choose which we get to read, so we have a choice. If it was replacing the originals altogether, I would have a problem, but they're not, so  I don't see why this is a bad thing.  Especially as the sex scenes really aren't that bad; it's not erotica. It's sexy without going over the top.

The Vincent Boys is a fantastic read; sweet, sexy, a huge emotional rollercoaster for the characters, and one of the best love triangles I've ever read. I'm definitely a New Adult fan, and definitely a Glines fan! Really looking forward to reading the sequel, The Vincent Brothers, as well as Glines other novels!

Thank you to Hot Key Books for the review copy.

[inlibrisveritas]

This book kind of surprised me with how easy it is to get sucked into it. It’s plot is quick paced and I was done before I knew it. This isn’t something I normally read because I normally don’t enjoy the whole “girl falls for guy she ‘can’t’ have” thing, there is usually some story to go with it and make it bearable for me. My curiosity won though and I ended up loading this on my Kindle to try out, I certainly don’t regret it. It’s a pretty good read and I enjoyed it quite a bit, though it does have some issues here and there.

The overall story isn’t exactly original but I do enjoy how invested I became in Ash’s choices, and even though I kind of have some problems with him I enjoyed Beau’s character. The writing is fairly clean cut, a tad informal and super easy to read. It’s the ease of it that makes it addicting and hard to put down once you get going.

Ash is a good girl with a ‘bad’ streak and tries desperately to hide it so she can live up to everyone’s expectations. I can understand that, but there are some conversations that come up involving this that are just awkwardly worded or over stressed…and in the end every time Ash would state that’s she a bad person I just wanted someone to reach over poke her in the eye. Luckily it isn’t harped on the entire time. I also didn’t get why her mind still traveled to her boy drama during a rather sad situation, if something so heartbreaking had happened to me boys (no matter how hot) would be the last thing on my mind. Beau is…well he’s hot, there I said it…The guy is definitely swoon worthy, well for the most part. He’s also a bit over protective in what I think is meant to be endearing and sweet, but it comes off as a prelude to scary. I can understand a guy getting protective over his girl, but Beau likes to take that protectiveness to the level of yelling or punching the other person in the face. Some girls like that, I do not. He also uses his girlfriend, Nicole, which I think is pretty trashy no matter how you spin it. I still enjoy his character despite his few blow ups and screw ups, and I prefer him over Sawyer who was just a stick in the mud for me. I assume he has a personality but he pales in comparison to Beau, he’s not that fun and he seems way too good…well except toward the end. I know the next book focuses more on him so I’ll be interested to see if he’s fleshed out some more. This one has me on the fence really. I don’t like cheating even when it’s fictional, but I enjoyed Beau and Ash’s relationship which I think has a lot to do with the absence of Sawyer through most of the book. There are also a few odd conveniences that pop up that made me kind of frown. I don’t like when things are conveniently placed in a book so that it wraps up nicely, it’s not all that realistic and it takes a bit away from the story.

I love the small town charm that comes with this and it actually feels like the perfect cozy read partly because of that I think. It’s comfortable, simple and easy to read, so it’s also easy to enjoy and let yourself sink into.