Name: What Once Was Perfect
ISBN: 9781926527550

Zoe York

Teacher, carpenter and Wardham's #1 son, Kyle Nixon has a pretty sweet life. But he can't shake the secret that he broke Laney Calhoun's heart a decade earlier when she left for medical school--alone.

What Once Was Perfect

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I managed to make it almost halfway into this book before I couldn't take anymore. Laney falls under the category of "Book characters who need therapy". She and Kyle broke up 12 years ago (and it was a weird ambiguous break-up at that...) and this woman is still not over it. She seems bitter and obsessive, living a half-life because a high school relationship fell apart when she left for college. This has apparently left her so emotionally scarred that she hasn't had a real relationship in 12 years - just hookups. I think this is a device used by authors to signal there there is only One True Lurve™ for their MC and this sort of behavior is just a recognition of that. But if someone did this IRL and you were their friend, you would tell them to get over it/see a therapist because this shit is just unhealthy.

Anyway, she returns to her hometown and of course sees Kyle again. It takes like 30 seconds for them to (view spoiler)[jump into bed together when she stops by his house after being super-juvenile and avoiding him (hide spoiler)]. Don't get me started on the melodramatic "single tear tracking down her face" when she sees a picture of him with an ex-girlfriend while he's standing right next to her. It's been 12 FREAKING YEARS! And she's crying in front of him over a photo?

As for Kyle, wtf dude? (view spoiler)[He broke up with her when she left for college - basically ghosted her - after professing he was her One True Lurve™ - because he couldn't handle the distance. But then somehow in his own mind, he revised events and thought she broke up with him?? (hide spoiler)] 

Anyhoo, aside from a ridiculous setup and characters who need serious emotional help, there was no plot in this story - just a series of them (view spoiler)[having sex all the time. I don't care about the explicit scenes but I do care about the plot being completely MIA (hide spoiler)] .