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My Review:Title: Nikan Rebuilt
Author: Scarlett Cole
Series: Preload #3
Published by: Swerve
Release Date: January 2, 2018
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 370
Genres: Romance, Contemporary
Source: NetGalley
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2020 Beat the Backlist Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 Diversity Reading Challenge, Lenoreo's 2020 Netgalley and Edelweiss Challenge
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My rating:
Blurb:Does the past ever really stay in the past?
Nikan can never be complete. He's got a rock group made up of the family he built for himself, more money than he knows what to do with, and a stream of groupies falling over themselves to date him. But none of them are her. The one regret that still plagues him, still taunts him with what he could have had.
Jenny is a survivor. Now running a group home after overcoming life in a cult lead by her manipulative father and watching her mother drink the poison he fed his followers, she fights to keep the light in the eyes of every boy who walks through her doors. Far from simple young love, Nik taught her to trust, showed her how good life could be. Before he formed the band. Before he became a famous rockstar. Before he destroyed it all.
A chance meeting after years of no contact shows the connection still blazes between them. But will they have their second chance at love? Or will the weight of their past crush their future together?
4 stars — This review is going to be completely unstructured, because I can’t seem to make a nice coherent flow. So I’ll hit the highlights.
As a Canadian, I understand how truly shameful our past is wrt the First Nations people. I appreciated that Ms. Cole tried to subtly address some things, but by her own author note acknowledged that she can only do so much with research, and encouraged her readers to search out #ownvoices stories. Seriously, that was fantastic.
My heart ached for Nik and how at the end of the rope he was with being the patriarch. I don’t know if the resolution was enough. I still worry for him. But it was definitely a start at opening the lines of communication.
I was surprised that Nikan’s alcoholism wasn’t really addressed — or rather, the alcohol addiction that was heavily hinted at in previous books. His addictive tendencies were definitely mentioned, but it was really only in passing. In that way this book was a lot more vague on what Nikan was going through, and how he was going to manage it.
Similarly I felt like I wanted more from Jenny’s past, what she went through, how she got past it, etc. We definitely got some, but apparently I’m greedy like that.
I felt like how Jenny and Nikan moved past Nik’s cheating rode that line between dragging on too long and giving it its due. I think it was just this side of the right amount of struggle and back and forth. Much longer though and I might have struggled with whether it was worth it for them to try.
Their relationship felt a bit desperate and co-dependent or something. So much of Nikan’s future happiness was wrapped up in Jenny being there. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if that hadn’t worked out.
I loved meeting the boys in Ellen’s group home that Jenny was running. I felt like we got a bigger glimpse at that life, and it was both fascinating and heartbreaking…mostly the latter. But there was a lot of hope too.
Overall it was a solid book in this series, but I thought Jordan and Elliott’s books stood out more. I was wanting something more in this one… Still fantastically emotional and captivating though.
You said everything perfectly with this one! I think this was the weakest book in the series. I still enjoyed it, but wanted more from it. I can’t wait to hear what you think about Lennon’s book.