megHan's Reviews > Ashes of Life

I'm going to vent for a minute here so bear with me: I loved this book and absolutely hated this book all at the same time. The emotions that this story brought out of me were - wow. In fact, there were several times that I put my Kindle down and vowed not to pick it back up again. Now, I've only been through part of the situation - my father died when I was a freshman in high school, but my mother never remarried, or even dated, as far as my sister and I know - but the way that these two acted, as if they were the only ones hurting, just really peeved me off. I'm serious - there were times that I wanted to punch both of the main characters in the face, yell at them for their behavior ... and there were times when I really wanted to give them both a giant hug, help to take some of the burden that they were going through off their shoulders. I know, from seeing friends go through the whole step-parent thing, that this is a realistic depiction of the relationship that happens a lot between the child and the parent's new spouse - even more so because of the fact that Alex was the only parent Maddie had left - but they spent far too much time hating each other when they really could have - and should have - bonded together in both their times of sorrow. But I'm also someone looking in on their lives from the comfort of my couch, not actually having to live the life that they lived. But MAN they pissed me off.

^^ That should tell you a lot about how well written this book is. I don't often get super emotional during a book like that, but this one sure did pull the feels out of me. It was eye-opening, to say the least. ^^

The characters are great. Even though I spent quite a bit of time hating Alex and Maddie (when you read the book, you'll understand why), they were both good people and deserved better than what they got from each other. The two men that came into their lives - and both of their best friends - really helped to show the kind of people they were outside of the grief that they were dealing with, and were just as well written as the two main characters.

Amazing job done by both of these authors. This is a great book from the very first to the very fast page. I definitely plan on searching out more from these two authors, and hope they produce something together again.