The Temptation of Lila and Ethan (Ella and Micha, #3)

by Jessica Sorensen

[Leah]

Jessica Sorensen is a very prolific author. Honestly – take a look at her website and see what upcoming books she has and you’ll see what I mean. She must write all day, every day! :) But she’s an author I enjoy so much – I like her writing style, I like her various book series and I was mightily impressed with both The Secret of Ella & Micha and The Coincidence of Callie & Kayden. I will admit to finding both their sequels a bit disappointing, but she’s still an author I enjoy, and still an author whose books I strive (and fail) to keep up with. I’ve been really excited for a long time to read The Temptation of Lila & Ethan, because as soon as I read about both of them in The Secret of Ella & Micha, I knew there was a story there and I knew I wanted to read it. It’s taken me way longer than I would like to read the novel, but I finally found time in my super busy schedule to fit it in, and man, was I impressed.

When I first started The Temptation of Lila & Ethan I wasn’t sure at all what to expect – from what I remembered of them both from the previous Ella & Micha novels was that Lila seemed like the life and soul of any party, she was a happy go lucky girl, and Ethan seemed a touch darker, a bit of a bad boy. So it was to my immense surprise that both Lila and Ethan are as messed up as each other! It was a bit of a shock, actually, to see that Lila was in no way the perfect girl she exudes in the other books, and it kinda made me remember a few instances where she wasn’t always so well presented and chipper. It was nothing like I expected, and the way she talkes about herself devastated me because I don’t think any girl, ever, should think about themselves that way, or talk about themselves in such derogotary terms and it made me flinch. Lila was so flippant about sleeping with guys, and popping her pills, and it just stunned me that that was her life, and that was her normal, and I just wanted to do something to help her.

It was surprising to me how much I relied on Ethan whilst reading the novel. Which sounds silly, but because Lila and Ethan are so damaged (Lila in particular), Ethan sort of becomes the emotional crutch. He’s the strong-headed one, trying to make Lila see sense and trying to (for lack of a better way of putting it) fix Lila. Because make no mistake, her parents and the boarding school where she attended in New York really did a number on poor Lila, and I wanted nothing more for her to come out of the other end feeling better about herself, and being with Ethan allowed her to do that. Ethan didn’t take any of her rubbish, and they had this easy sort of friendship that could be more, but both were afraid for varying reasons. It says a lot that Ethan had his own issues, but was more concerned with helping Lila with hers. To me, that’s a mark of a really good friend and I liked that, at their core, Lila and Ethan were friends first. Whatever happened, they started as friends, which I always think is a great basis for any relationship. I loved when Lila moved in with Ethan, the novel was headed that way for ages, so it was awesome when it eventually happened. My poor, bruised heart sang!

The Temptation of Lila & Ethan really surprised me. It was raw, it was brutal, and it was very honest. Flinchingly so. I couldn’t believe two people could regard drugs and sex so offhandedly, as if it meant nothing, and it was a bit of a shock, but I soon got used to it. That was their coping mechanisms, that was how Lila and Ethan faced the world every day, when they’ve been told for so long that they’re not worthy, Lila especially. I felt an affinity with both of them, and I definitely understood where Ethan’s craving for solitude came from – I crave it on a daily basis, going somewhere where there are no people, no sounds, no nothing. Just me and my books and my TV shows. (And maybe my dogs, too, cos I couldn’t leave them behind.) I absolutely loved Lila and Ethan’s story. It seemed so real, and it was so gratifying to see two damaged people make themselves happy, and to hell with what anyone else said. I see since the release of Lila & Ethan, Jessica has released another novel (or perhaps novella) featuring them so I can’t wait to read more from them, I have never rooted for a couple as much as I rooted for Lila and Ethan. I loved them as if they were old friends.