After a scandal forces her to change her college, Lucia Ramirez chooses to attend the college where Dane Monroe is a student. Lucia has had a secret crush on Dane, but with his being the son of the woman running for president against her father she has never done anything about it. When Lucia and Dane come face to face at school, he makes his hatred for her known right away. Their secret service agents force them to live together when they can't find a safe place for Lucia to stay during the election on such short notice. As Dane and Lucia adjust to college life, volleyball, and their new living arrangements they start to get to know one another beyond first impressions and assumptions. But can they get past all the obstacles that stand in their way, especially their difference in beliefs and politics?
Dane and Lucia were likable enough characters, but I honestly felt as though they didn't act their ages. They came off as immature and often acted in childish ways. Dane was self-centered and a jerk at the beginning, and threw a few too many hissy fits for my liking. He was like a child having a temper tantrum when things didn't go his way and I didn't care for it. As the story progressed I was glad to see he got over some of that and also started to see Lucia for who she was and not who he had wrongly judged her as being. Lucia was complicated and had quite a few issues. She had always done what her parents told her and believed what they believed. She had her moments where she came off as really naive and sheltered, but then other times she seemed to be more open and understanding than how she was raised. But she also was sort of weak and had a lot of anxiety issues as well as an eating disorder. She couldn't handle stress at all, and it seemed as though she crumbled over the smallest of things at times. I wanted her to buck up a bit, but she really seemed to have to lean on others in order to have any strength at all. It was hard for me to connect to her because of that.
While this book is said to be a new adult story, this one really felt like a young adult story to me. It was really clean and didn't go much beyond kissing. I was looking for more between these two, and I felt like we just weren't ever really given much when it came to the development of their relationship. This book centered far too much on everything that was going on around them for my taste, and I felt like there was so much drama thrown their way. It almost seemed unrealistic with how many obstacles and conflicts there were for these two to overcome and it really lost me along the way. I was starting to come around on the story and really enjoy these two, and then I got to the ending. I didn't care for the way that the author ended things, and it felt as though we had been lead through an entire book just to be left hanging. As far as I know this book is a standalone, so to me the ending wasn't satisfying at all. I don't need things to be perfectly wrapped with a bow, but I would like to at least be left with my questions answered and on solid ground if the book is a standalone and I just don't feel like that is what happened here. I felt like this story had a lot of promise and had some really great moments that were enjoyable, but that there were other parts that just fell flat for me. I hope that the author will give more of Dane and Lucia's story in the future to at least tie things up for these two. I would love to get some more answers and see how things turn out for them.
**ARC Provided by AToMR Tours**
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Hey, Casey Chick! Thank you for taking the time to read and review Blocked. I appreciate it! :-)
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