For Finlay by J. Nathan

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Title: For Finlay
Author: J. Nathan
Series: For You #1
Published by: Indie
Release Date: January 30th 2017
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 214
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, Sports Romance
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2019 Beat the Backlist Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ Google ✩ Kobo ✩ iBooks ✩ IndieBound ✩ Book Depository
My rating:

Blurb:

Finlay Thatcher is a lost soul, guilt-ridden after the death of her twin brother. When Alabama's football coach gives her the opportunity to work for him, she knows it's her chance to move on, even if it means living her brother's dream.

Caden Brooks is Alabama's star quarterback. He's got it all. The attention of adoring fans. A girlfriend who'd do anything to hold on to him. And a future in the pros. He's getting along just fine until Finlay steps into his life, despising him at first sight and pushing his buttons like no other.

Unfortunately for Finlay, and her attempt to keep Caden at arm's length, there's nothing Caden loves more than a challenge. The problem with this challenge is she comes with a secret that has the power to destroy everything.

My Review:

3 stars — This one sucked me in practically right from the start, and I couldn’t put it down.  It was just easy to read and compelling.  But as we got to know the characters more and more, I realized I didn’t like either of them that much, and I started losing patience with their decisions and reactions.  I was going to give it an extra half star for the beginning, but after writing out the rest of the review, I just can’t.

Finlay…hmmm.  Well, Finlay was hard to connect to.  I expected to feel more with her grief, but there wasn’t a lot of depth there.  I didn’t really understand the relationship she had with Cole, so about the only thing I understood from her few flashbacks was her guilt at how broken their relationship was when he died.  And I did feel for her with that…it would suck to make bad, teenaged choices, and not get the chance to fix things.  Other than that, I don’t know if I could really tell you what Finlay was about, except in relation to her grief for her brother.  She had a bit of sass, and I loved seeing her stand up against Caden and Grady.  And I get that she was big into football, but what else was there?  I don’t know.

And then we have Caden.  Dudes, he is not my kind of hero.  He was a bit too forceful for me (alpha-ish I guess?)…and legit cocky.  Not like fake cocky, but for realz…  It made it so that I didn’t really believe his sensitive moments.  I didn’t even feel for him about his Dad, because he just came across immature in the way he dealt with him.  I guess that’s really it…Caden came across as VERY immature.  Which, is not unrealistic for someone in college…but it doesn’t make him someone to swoon over, you know?  I could have probably tolerated him more if he hadn’t reacted the way he did with Leslie’s reveal.  It just made me want to roll my eyes.  And then he felt so entitled to forgiveness!  Grrr…  I’m so intolerant you guys…I just couldn’t get on board with him.  He was a straight up dick most of the time.

And the two of them together didn’t even really give me anything good.  Everything happened so fast, that I just didn’t buy into their feelings for one another…and I have to have buy in in order to feel tummy tingles.  The almost cheating didn’t help matters.

Damn, I’m feeling really bad about this ranty review.  It’s like, it wasn’t some horrible book or anything, but I’m just so disappointed because it could have been better you know?  And the misunderstandings and conflicts that arose just felt so cliche, and apparently I wasn’t in the mood for that.  So take my review with a teensy grain of salt.  It just hit buttons apparently.