FROM ASHES by Molly McAdams

William Marrow

April 16^th, 2013

978-0-06-226772-6

Contemporary, Coming of Age

Paperback

Reviewed by Dawn (love2read28@gmail.com)

Obtained by Publisher

 

Cassidy Jameson has had a rough life with her father gone when she was six and her trust placed in one person, Tyler, a childhood friend. When she follows Tyler down to Texas for college, she finds herself drawn to Gage, their new roommate. The one problem-he is Tyler’s cousin. But Gage is just as intrigued with Cassidy as she is with him. But with Tyler telling Gage to back off to Cassidy finally falling in love, all three will find their lives forever changed when disaster hits.

In FROM ASHES, Ms. McAdams delivers a story that either will annoy you death or make you fall in love with it. For myself, as a reader, I prefer a nice flowing story with subtle point of view shifts and in FROM ASHES, you don’t get that. The constant shifts from the main characters each page had me gritting my teeth as well as wondering where the author I fell in love with in TAKING CHANCES was. The communication between the main characters was almost nil at times and made me want to slap them all upside the head a few times. The constant melodrama between Cassidy and the guys who want her was almost too much to bear at times. One minute she is professing her love for one guy then finding herself attracted to another several pages later. It was enough to make my head spin and want to get out a score card over all the characters being introduced.

The author tries to give the characters redeeming qualities but they never really come across very well, which was quite unsettling. Half way through the book, I had to put it down and go find something else because I just wanted to toss the book across the room and stomp on it. I never really got to see the heart of the characters as much as I would have liked to. Ms. McAdams tries to make them appealing but falls short with them. I really wished the author took the time to find out how guys think/talk, etc because some scenes with Gage just did not compute as a guy thing. It astounded me as well that as a victim of abuse, Cassidy had no idea what to do with her life or have any dreams of her own. The author didn’t even bother trying to show how Cassidy can help herself achieve them and that turned me off more than anything in FROM ASHES.

FROM ASHES tries its hardest to get you to love the story/characters but falls short with me and makes me wonder where the writer Ms. McAdams was that I fell in love with. If you enjoy a book like this then you may enjoy FROM ASHES. As it was, I found it very hard to enjoy and think I will stick with my favorites by this author instead.

This is an objective review and not an endorsement