Heat of the Moment (Moment of Truth, #1)

by Lauren Barnholdt

[Rowena]

Lauren Barnholdt is hit or miss with a lot of readers but for me, she’s mostly been a hit. The last couple of books she’s released haven’t been my favorites but I still like her as an author so I try to give her books a go when they hit the review shelves.

This book is the first in her new Moment of Truth series about three ex best friends who are in their senior of high school and have received emails that they sent to each other back when they were freshman in high school. Back before their friendships fell apart.

The first of the friends, Lyla McAfee’s email said, “Before I graduate, I’ll learn to trust”. Lyla hasn’t trusted anyone in a very long time. She doesn’t really have any true friends, not since her friends betrayed her and caused a whole lot of drama in her family. She’s kept to herself and with her boyfriend Derrick.

Lyla is on her way to her senior trip to Florida with her boyfriend and she’s determined to lose her virginity because she feels that it’s time. Things have been going pretty perfect with Derrick but when she misses the bus to the airport and he doesn’t call to check up on her, a girl’s got to wonder…how perfect are things if he doesn’t seem to care that you might miss the senior trip? Lyla has got a lot on her mind and this trip away is supposed to be perfect but when the school play boy, Beckett starts coming around, things get pretty crazy.

Right from the jump, I liked Beckett. I liked him a lot more than I liked Derrick. The minute Lyla wasn’t on the bus and Derrick didn’t call, my spidey senses started going off like crazy and then when they get to the airport and Derrick explained away his non-call, my spidey senses continued to beep beep beep their way around my head. But then the book takes off and then Lyla starts to get on my nerves.

Like, a lot.

She makes every bad decision on the planet and even in the end, she’s making stupid assumptions and thinking stupid shit that pissed me right off. She was so immature and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why Beckett liked her so much. I thought Beckett deserved far better than the likes of Lyla. She was so dumb for so much of the book. She kind of reminded me of Penn from Barnholdt’s book Through to You. Full of dumb shit for far too long.

In the end, I didn’t hate her but I still didn’t really like her and I’m hoping that will change in the next book because I still want to read the other books. The friendship between Lyla, Aven and Quinn is something that is drawing me to continue the series. I think it’s Quinn’s book and I’m looking forward to digging into that one. Quinn and Aven are interesting characters and I can’t wait to read more of them. I liked them more than I liked Lyla so I’m hopeful that they won’t drive me too crazy in their books.