Braver With You, from A. Hart (Great Love #1)

Hello, good Sunday to you! Another review is up on the blog, this time for Braver With You, which I received from dear A. Hart in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, I loved it!

from my Instagram 😀

The Story

Emerson looks like your regular girl, except that she’s anything but. Em won the fight of her life, against cancer. Now she just wants to have a normal and healthy life, free of drama and hospitals. And, if it’s not asking for much, beside the boy that she met during the darkest days of her life.

Calvin is a soldier, shipped everywhere to protect and serve his nation. He met Em while she was still fighting cancer and was thorn to leave her to attend another mission. Now Calvin is back to their small town and plans to stay after his last assignment, which shall take place in a couple of weeks. The trick will be convincing Em that what they had before can grow into so much more.

Two shattered hearts, one future. They only need to be brave.

The Analysis

Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂

I have to say that contemporary romance usually is not my first choice of genre, but holy cow! A. Hart did an amazing job with this book! I really liked it and couldn’t stop reading ❤ Just the kind of book that makes you want to hug it and never let go, you know? It was a wonderful surprise to love Em and Cal, to support their love and be a witness of their happiness together. The only reason that I took off one star of the book was due to editing problems, but the story itself is a five stars one 😀

The narrative was very interesting. You see, it was first person and if you have read one or two of my reviews, you already know that I’m not a fan of this narrative style. Yet, Hart played with Em, Cal and Sid’s point of views, so the reader didn’t lose any part of what was happening, being able to understand all the reasons behind what was happening! It was brilliant! *–*

The plot is simple. Girl meets boy, they fall in love, have to split up thanks to life, meet again in the future and try to make it happen again. The master play in Braver With You is how Hart treats themes like cancer, responsibility, stalking, sexual harassment and abuse, recipes to happiness and love itself. Cancer, for example, wasn’t an active character, just a shadow. We don’t get to see Em’s time at the hospital, for which I’m very grateful (I lost an uncle for cancer last year, it would be impossible for me to read a book that talks about a cancer patient routine right now), we meet Em and Cal at their reencounter 🙂 The way Hart brings the stalking and sexual harassment into the plot is also very good. She shows how it can happen to anyone, without a previous warn, and that the people that do these sick things not always have mental issues. Sometimes, they are just that mean and, no matter how small the incident looks, ALWAYS report it to the authorities. ALWAYS, okay?

Now, characters. It was very nice to see that Cal didn’t leave Em because he was confused or anything. Cal, as a soldier, had responsibilities that he couldn’t and wouldn’t ignore and this is part of his charm. Em understood that to a point, but as they didn’t talk, she had her doubts. By the way, I loved them as a couple. Em could be a pain sometimes and Cal could be very dense, but those two together become better people after getting together. I LOVED IT! ❤ I really hated the bad guy that shall have his name hidden due spoilers. He was disgusting since scene one and I wanted to hit him with something heavy straight in the head.

Ahem.

Bonus point: besides the cool switching points of view, there is one other thing that made me love this book a lot. There is a scene where Cal and Em start to watch Funny Face, with Audrey Hepburn! This is my second favorite movie that she stars, just losing to My Fair Lady ❤ YOU ROCKED HERE, HART! /o/

if you didn’t watch it, please do! ❤

Overall, I enjoyed a lot this book, specially the twists in the end. After the major cliff hang on the last chapter, I can’t wait to buy and read the second book of the series, Stronger By Your Side 😀

That’s it! Thanks for reading and thanks once again to A. Hart for this heart-warming book ❤ Do you like contemporary romances?

 

 

Ps: That was my fifth book on the #12daysofbooksmas2 readathon!