Bad Intentions by Nacole Stayton *The review you have all been waiting for…*

*Precaution, this is the book that I told you all about that made me go on my week hiatus. This is an extremely personal review, so view discretion is advised <3*

Purchased: Kindle – $2.99 [Received copy from author in exchange for honest review]

My Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Spoilers!

What’s It All About:

“She’s careful, but wants to be reckless. 

She’s cute, but wants to be sexy. 

She’s innocent, but wants to be bad. 

When ex-Olympic gymnast, Adaley Knight wakes on her eighteenth birthday she only has one wish, to leave the only town she’s ever known and start fresh. 

Finding herself enrolled at a college across the globe, the once modest Adaley is almost unrecognizable. Her new persona dances on the wild side by sinking her teeth into the first bad boy she sees. The only problem is he’s not the least bit interested. 

Ryle Benson, baseball extraordinaire and brooding campus bad boy keeps everyone at an arms length. Things have never come easy for him and the last thing he needs is getting involved with any female. 

The tables are reversed as she tries to be bad, tempting fate, and he tries to fight his. The push and pull is half the fun. But what happens when one pushes a little too hard?”

Description taken form Amazon.

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So for this book I decided to take the book description straight from Amazon because I just physically couldn’t put it into my own words without becoming emotional. This is going to be a two part review. The very analytical review of why it is good and bad. Then the emotional review. As many of you know this book hit me real hard, to the point where I took a week off from blogging and just sat around and cried and read. I want you all to now that reasons behind my love for this novel and here it is. This post was written over the course of many days as I had to stop myself a few times before hitting that breaking point again. Hope you enjoy ❤

The Best Parts:

From the first page, these characters grab your attention. Adaley is/isn’t a rebellious teen, but you see the need for her to find herself. The journey that she embarks on with Zoe, Tank, and Ryle is one to be remembered. Zoe helps Adaley break out of the good girl facade, but it is soon that Adaley realizes just how much she isn’t that person, but even so she finds a happy medium of who she was and who she wants to be, and that make the woman that she is now. Zoe and Tank are her best friends and their stories just jump off the page. I love that we are able to see what everyone is up to so that we aren’t out of the look, because just as much as Adaley’s story is important to us, so is Zoe’s and Tank’s. Then we have Ryle. Such a mysterious man in all the right ways though. You can feel his anger and angst about life and the way he wants to be but can’t. You can feel just how scared he is and want to comfort him, but thankfully that is what Adaley is there for.

This novel doesn’t just focus on family, but the fact that family isn’t just built from blood, but from friendship. Adaley lost her family when she lost her ability to do gymnastics, but what was better, was that she gained a new one when she went away to college. She found people who understood her and never judged. They just accepted her. She learned finally what love really was and how to hold onto that love forever.

The Worst Parts:

No worst parts. None. I’m serious. This book was perfection. Not a hair out of line, no spelling errors, or continuity errors. From start to finish you are taken on an amazing journey through all of these twists and turns and they leave you feeling breathless.

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The Whole Shebang:

So here it is guys. Here is the emotion part to my review.

*Warning I basically cried the entire time while writing this part – Here is a suggestion to make reading this ten times worse, because I’m an evil person! :], I listened to Say Something by Great Big World while writing this. The first time I ever heard that song my husband told me it reminded him of my father and I. So listen to that while reading this and you will totally understand my break down <3*

This book tugged at my heartstrings. There was so much happiness. So much love. Adaley and Ryle had this awkward new romance starting and it was so funny to watch it unfold. To see there back and forth, to see how scared each of them was to fall. The both fell so hard for each other and it was one of the most beautiful romances that I have ever seen blossom. There is a point in this novel though where you see it happen. You watch these two characters fall in love, and there is no going back from there.

With all of this love, nothing could go wrong right? That is the worst part. In life when you think everything is going great is then the worst happens. Ryle was so used to the women in his life always leaving that he never expected himself to be the one to leave. Just as these two have been through so much and have shared so much of their lives with each other and are finally able to be together is when they are ripped apart from one another. Ryle’s character has done so much with his life and has touched so many people, and then is too quickly taken from this world. Every single emotion that Adaley goes through with losing Ryle is every emotion that I have ever felt. Being there when it happens and knowing you have to live your life with those memories.

The whole ending to this book brought back so many different emotions for me. I have read many books where the main character dies, but this one was one that just hit way too close to home for me. Not because this personally happened to me, but because these emotions that Ryle and Adaley felt, and the lose that adaley feels are things that I have felt now for many years.

I lost my father seven years ago. The day that I lost him I talked to him when I got out of school and told him I was headed home so we could go out to the grocery store. It took fifteen minutes for me to get home, just fifteen minutes, and by the time I got there he was gone. I was the one who had to check his pulse and call 911 and wait there as I could do nothing. I watched there as my father laid there dead. I was alone. I was the one who had to call my brother and tell him not to be scared when he got home. I was the one who had to call my mother in Italy and tell her her husband was dead. This has always been my burden to bare. I know the rest of my family felt his lose too, but they aren’t the ones who live with these memories like I do. They aren’t the ones who live with the regret of not being able to do anything, or not getting home sooner, of not being there for him.

These were only my initial thoughts when I finished the novel. After all the tears were whipped away my next thoughts were of my husband. After my father died I went through a really bad period where I pushed everyone away because I thought they were going to leave me too. My husband was the first person to ever break through, but for a majority of our relationship I just couldn’t help but think that he would be gone one day. If he didn’t answer his phone I freaked out. I couldn’t lose him too, and once I had that first thought I knew I was doomed. This man came into my life at such a rough point in time and healed me, but he also had the power to break me again if I ever lost him. I called my husband after all the tears, just to hear his voice, and tell him I love him. But the first thing that came out of my mouth was are you driving? Please get home safe.

He knew something was wrong. I told him what happened, and even through the crazy he still told me he loved me. That whole day while I was at work he texted me to make sure I was ok. But even with those reassurances I know that this book awaken so many thoughts that I had thought I gave up a long time ago. You all know I took time off from my blog here and that is because I just needed time with my husband. I needed to mend the crack that this book made. But what this book also showed me was that even after losing someone so close to you that at least you loved, even if was only for a short amount go time.

At the end of this book in the authors comments Nacole says something that hit home to me as well, but it is something that seems like a fitting end to this review. Even those these characters are gone, they still live inside of you. With your memories. Every time you open the pages to this book Ryle lives on. Every time you open a memories of a loved one their life emanates through you, whether it be good or bad. Remembering is only the half of it, but living is the other. Once you can live through the memories, that is when you will be able to move forward. Not move on, because sometimes that just doesn’t happen, but moving forward is the next best thing.

Thank you all so much ❤ I love you guys ❤

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Final Thoughts:

Buy this damn book. Go buy it NOW. I mean it. Even though it gave me way too many feels to deal it I promise that it is totally worth the heartbreak. Because that is exactly what this book will do. It will build you up and then break you down and then make you really think about life. This is a romance novel, right? Yupp! That’s what makes it ten times better ❤

P.s. – This book is literally my second favorite book of all time now. The first book is one that surprisingly enough has the exact same ending… I’m just a glutton for punishment…