REVIEW: Progress (Progress, Book 1) by Amalie Silver

RATING:

Amazon

Blurb

Jesse

I admit, I didn’t think much of Charlie at first. She was rounder than the girls who usually caught my eye. Not my type. But when I saw her sitting in that booth alone, for the first time something in my mind or my instincts or my heart told me to join her.

She defied me.
She challenged me.
She gave me hope.
Before I knew it, moving forward was my only option.

Charlie

I couldn’t tell you when it happened, but it had to have been a gradual change; I never moved too quickly.

If someone would have told me earlier that year what I was going to go through, I wouldn't have believed them.

Jesse was so different from anyone I’d met before. And everyone I’ve met since. He sucked all the life out of me, in the best—and worst—ways.

We don’t get strong overnight. For most of us it takes time. Strength isn’t measured by how high and fast our walls go up, but how easily we can watch them fall.

Review

I'm a little upset at myself right after finishing this. How did I not notice "book one" right above the title?!?

Note to self: get better prescription.

This book, sigh…

… it was emotionally taxing, sigh…

I have 2 of Amalie’s books waiting to be read, Word Play and Four Play, 2 light funny reads if I recall some of my Goodreads friends’ reviews. Then the cover for this caught my eye. I love the cover! I quickly read the blurb, it didn’t sound funny, but hey, I’ve heard nothing but good things about Amalie’s other books.

After reading this, boy was I in for a surprise! And kinda’ glad in a way that it ended up being my 1st Amalie read. I’m thinking if she can write angst like this, then her funny ones must be really funny.

You get the story of Charlie and Jesse, 2 20-something folks with normal jobs in a pizza place. For whatever reason, they each caught each other’s attention and what began was a friendship, albeit tenuous. Charlie, for all her past experience, is tuned in to Jesse’s feelings. Jesse, on the other hand, doesn’t understand his pull towards Charlie. I wanted to say the friendship grows, but not really. As Charlie figures things out, so does Jesse.

Charlie's and Jesse’s issues are very real. I can’t relate, but they’re issues one is bound to know well enough whether thru personal experience or those of other’s around. The inner struggle, the aftermath of cruel actions, surviving, the struggles of daily living when facing demons constantly, trying to stay on the right path… Is this really romance? Not sure… Doesn’t sound like it, does it? Yet it is, really.

Maybe it’s just me but the blurb did not prepare me for the heaviness of this book. A few times I’ve asked myself if I wanted to finish it, yet something in the writing makes me want to find out more. At every turn of the page, I was getting impatient but worried at the same time at what could possibly go down. This is not my usual read. Even in contemporary fiction, I will avoid it if I can. I figure, I know enough real people facing these struggles that I read about so where’s the escape? But I’ll be the first to say as well, well written is well written, I suppose.

There is a continuation to Charlie and Jesse’s story. This first book does not even end in HFN but somehow I didn’t mind it. If I don’t get a chance to read the 2nd book, I’m fine with it; BUT I’m hoping I do, no doubt. Such is life. Sometimes, certain things have no endings, you don’t get closure yet somehow you find a way to find one. At least that’s how I saw it… 

I want to say thank you, Amalie, for this, but it’s probably gonna sound sarcastic even if I don’t want it to. How can it not? What do I say? Thank you for this depressing and melancholic feeling that I’m trying to shake off? Thank you for the bleak outlook that’s pervasive for the most part of the book? Thank you for the slight optimism however shaky it is? Ahh, I know. Thank you for evoking such an emotion out of me. That doesn’t happen very often. Totally unexpected!

Thanks for dropping by!

~Leftie