Maggie and Caleb just went through the worst year of their lives. Hit by a car and starting life over with a limp, Maggie never thought she would forgive Caleb. But she did-and fell in love. What they shared was real. But Caleb wanted to be free from a terrible secret: he wasn't the one who hit Maggie. So he left Paradise-and Maggie-forever. From the New York Times Bestselling Author of RULES OF ATTRACTION Comes the Sequel to LEAVING PARADISE Caleb Becker left Paradise eight months ago, taking with him the secret he promised to take to his grave. If the truth got out, it would ruin everything. Maggie Armstrong tried to be strong after Caleb broke her heart and disappeared. Somehow, she managed to move on. She's determined to make a new life for herself. But then Caleb and Maggie are forced together on a summer trip. They try ignoring their passion for each other, but buried feelings resurface. Caleb must face the truth about the night of Maggie's accident, or the secret that destroyed their relationship will forever stand between them. Praise for Leaving Paradise: "Elkeles writes convincingly about family tensions, retreating from painful reality, and teens outgrowing their old skins."-School Library Journal "Elkeles creates raw emotions, dialogue, and high-school ambience that's just right [A] delicate, delicious love story."-Booklist AGES: 12 to 18 AUTHOR: Simone Elkeles is the author of Leaving Paradise and four other Flux novels, including How to Ruin Your Summer Vacation and How to Ruin Your Boyfriend's Repuation. She is also the author of the New York Times bestselling Rules of Attraction (Walker). A popular speaker at libraries around the country, when the author is not writing she TiVos reality television and watches teen movies. She lives near Chicago with her family and two dogs.
I absolutely loved Leaving Paradise, so I didn't hesistate to buy Return to Paradise once it was released, excepting the same brilliance. Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed.
I said in my review of Leaving Paradise that I was disappointed in the romance because it started too abruptly to late on in the book. I'm still disappointed. I just didn't really feel it. All emotional aspects Maggie and Caleb felt because of each other - anger, sadness, love - just felt a little over the top to me. When they were complaining about the other, it felt like they were making a big deal over nothing. And the love felt more like they were just silly teenagers declaring love when they didn't really know what it is. That's not how the story sets it up, but how it felt to me, it was just a little melodramatic to me.
As well as all the emotion issues, not a huge deal happens in the book, either. Caleb and Maggie meet up when she signs up for and he's forced into joining the Re-START programme, a programme that has a bunch of kids who have suffered from drink driving in various ways, and they are to go and talk to other kids at summer camp, universities, juvie, and so on, to make them aware of the consequences. But we see very little of what happens at the meetings that take place, and don't get to know the other kids as well as I would have liked. The focus is all on the emotional connection between Caleb and Maggie.
All in all, I was really disappointed. I have absolutely loved every other Elkeles book I've read, so it's a shame that I didn't enjoy this one. However, I'm not sure whether Leaving Paradise should be read as a stand-alone, as that's not the way it was intended. Maybe you will enjoy it more than I did.
