Driftwood Lane

There were some cute moments, but this one was also a miss for me. (This series was definitely not my favorite.)

I???m not a fan of plots built entirely around one adult lying to the other (or both adults lying to each other) all through the book only to be wrapped up with a tidy bow at the end. The stories always come across exceedingly contrived, unnecessary and unrealistic, and I can never bring myself to believe that the leads are actually going to have a happy, healthy relationship when the story is over.

My other issue with this story was Jake, the male lead. He made bad decision after bad decision and just ended up being incredibly unlikeable. He was the creepy uncle who hid behind a tree or a bus at the kids??? school so he could see them without their legal guardian knowing. He asked the kids to lie to their guardian with him (and then unnecessarily let that lie go on until the end of the book). He was the guy who made (horrible) life decisions based off a rumor that one of the female lead???s relatives (who was not a part of her life anymore) had a mental illness; not her, mind you - her relative. He justified his lies / decisions by saying that the disease is hereditary (in reality, there is about a 10% chance of a child inheriting this illness from their parent who has it) and automatically assumed that the female lead probably had this illness too. He then decided that it was okay for him to snoop through her personal belongings looking for medications. Apparently we???re all supposed to forget these things because he???s buff, has a ???deep throaty laugh,??? and had good intentions, but I???m not buying it.

I like books with flawed characters but healthy relationships. This one had the first but not the second.