Loooooved it!!!
It was funny, and sweet, and sexy and touching ... a really wonderful story!! ( )

I really liked this book. It was an easy read with emotion and heartbreak but also with hope and unconditional love. There were some great raunchy scenes, funny scenes and scenes that made me catch my breath.

Whit and Deo had deep issues that needed more than a quick fix. They needed trust in each other, trust in themselves and trust in life. Deo works so hard at breaking down the huge defenses that Whit has erected, trying to help her to believe in him, in love and in moving forward. Whit was so fierce in the protection of those defenses that it made for some heartbreaking scenes and I loved Deo for his perseverance. Deo also had his own issues and I loved his friend Cohen for his words of honesty and wisdom, helping Deo to fight his own demons.

I'm finding it hard to write any more without giving spoilers. Suffice to say that this is the first collaboration I have read and I really enjoyed it and look forward to more from these authors. I will be checking out other books they have written ( )

So it's about a girl running from some painful stuff & finds a slacking Hot surfer boy to pass the time ............read the rest of my review on my blog www.iloveladyporn.blogspot.com ( )

So it's about a girl running from some painful stuff & finds a slacking Hot surfer boy to pass the time ............read the rest of my review on my blog www.iloveladyporn.blogspot.com ( )

Wow, what an incredible book!! I loved it (and Deo)! This is a Contemporary, New Adult book, and was told from two POV's. The on/off relationship between Deo and Whit was enough to cause a permanent heart arrhythmia. My emotions were all over the place while reading this book! I was excited, pissed, happy, sad, and everything in between.

Deo's mother and grandfather were an absolute RIOT! Especially his mother's euphemisms for sex.. like threading the needle. His grandfather was snarky and sarcastic.

Deo: Surfer, beach bum, jobless, unmotivated. Sounds unappealing huh? But he was far from that. I loved him. He was so sweet, sexy, and very very charming.

Whit: I didn't connect with her as much as I would've liked, but understood why she felt/did what she did. She tried hard to be independent, but was constantly running away from her problems.

The story: They meet in a tattoo shop on Deo's birthday. The tattoo was a gift from Deo's hippie mother. Whilst trying to decide upon a tattoo, Whit offers him one that she had designed. He decided to get it. They soon fall into a just friends relationship, then into a friends with benefits relationship. The problem, Deo wants more and Whit is terrified to make that leap, feeling that she would lose all of the control she had worked so hard to build. Deo pushes too hard and has to get the one person.. the one thing that ever motivated him back.

If you liked Beautiful Disaster or Love Unscripted, you'd like this book. There is a bit more adult language in it, but that didn't bother me. ( )

I think I may have mentioned in one of my other reviews just how much I like Liz Reinhardt's writing. I have read Steph Campbell earlier, too, and loved her.

And I really loved this.

I'm not even gonna lie, the main reason I loved it was Deo. I mean sure, the story was great, Whit is an interesting character, I loved Deo's mom and her herbal concoctions (she reminds me of my mom so much), but Deo? I think he may be a new among my favorite characters! His lack of direction in life troubled me so much. He just seems to be drifting out there, without any real goal. But through all this he is so laid back, so unstressed that you can't but envy him that attitude. And he is so straight-to-the-point, it's refreshing. So uncomplicated.
I enjoyed reading his chapters (and I can tell the author enjoyed writing him, too). When I have a reaction like this to any character, of course they become one of my favorites. He did some things wrong, but he is a genuinely nice guy with good intentions.

Like I said, Whit is an interesting character. At times I was so annoyed with her indecisiveness - I like you, I want to be friends, but I really like you, stay over but we're just friends. And then after things happen with them, she does everything to sabotage their relationship. Sometimes I felt she was leading Deo on. Sure, she had a lot to deal with, and in the end everything worked out, but I really just disliked her most of the time because the way she acts was very self-centered.

I would definitely recommend this read. ( )

3.5 stars

Lengths is a story about a romance between Whit — a girl running from her past — and Deo — a sweet surfer kid who's a bit of a slacker and kind of heading nowhere.

The sex in this book is hot! It is a little more descriptive than in other books I've read lately, so just beware, if you don't like too much sexual detail! But it's very sexy.

I enjoyed Lengths, but it didn't totally live up to my expectations. I think I just felt a little disconnected from the story.

As I've seen a few other people mention, there are some pacing problems. The book would jump forward weeks in advanced without much warning or explanation. That left some pieces lacking detail or sometimes I was just confused about how much time had actually gone by! I think the pacing issues also made me feel a little disconnected from the characters. It was hard to really get a good feel for them when we kept jumping ahead in time; some moments felt cut short.

For the longest time, I saw another problem with Lengths but I didn't know how to explain it. Then I was randomly reading Kat Zhang's blog, and she described the problem perfectly!

The thing about first person is that you are literally in the head of your character. Unless the story is very clearly told in retrospect, there are few filters between what your character is feeling and what is conveyed to the reader. Your character is not going to be able to clearly and calmly define her feelings seconds after realizing her fiance has cheated on her with her cousin, you know?
Kat Zhang

In Lengths, Whit would often talk about her feelings (to herself), but explain them perfectly. Like she knew that she was hiding things and why she was doing it, and how she was putting up walls, and protecting herself, etc. But it didn't feel real for her to know all that. I expected more freaking out, denial, and impulsive rage-fests, rather than thinking things like, "I knew he was right, because I close myself off and I'm running away from my past and need to put up these barriers to protect myself." Her inner thoughts just sounded too calm, collected, and 'informed' (is that the right word?). It's like Whit knew all her own thoughts and emotions perfectly, rather than being the jumbled up mess that most of us actually are. There were times when she did react more appropriately, but more than once I found myself thinking that Whit was able to "define her feelings" too easily or too quickly.

I think another thing that disconnected me from the characters, was the lack of relatable side characters. I mean we do have a few fun side characters like Deo's mom, Deo's grandfather, Deo's friend, and Whit's boss, but other than Deo's friend (who only makes very brief appearances), none of those characters are on "equal" ground with Whit and Deo. Normally in books like this the main girl has a best friend who she confides in, or the guy has a friend who's around a lot, but that was kind of missing in Lengths. Maybe it's cliché for me to insist that those characters exist, but I think it helps to understand the character better. Whit is extremely closed off when she's around Deo and it would have helped for her to have a best friend she could go cry to and "reveal all" to.

And finally, Whit had this big problem in her past that was a key part of the story and I felt it was a little anti-climactic. This part of the review is super hard for me to write because (1) I don't want to give this "big problem" away, and (2) because I don't want to judge people who have problems and who am I to say that a certain problem isn't big or exciting enough for that person to be upset for long periods of time. But when I was reading the book and saw how heavily affected Whit was by this "problem," I expected it to be much bigger than what it actually turned out to be.

Okay, I know I have a lot of criticism, but that doesn't mean this was a bad book. There were some things that didn't resonate with me, but it was still a very enjoyable read! It's hot, it's fun, and honestly it was refreshing to read about such a different lifestyle. So many books focus on girls who fall in love with sexy, rich guys. Instead, Lengths gives us a very casual, laid-back guy who is refusing to go to college and is living with his grandfather. I think that paved the way for a very good "pure romance" story! ( )