The Big Bad Wolf & Little Red Riding Hood

Title: If You Stay
Series: Beautifully Broken #1
Author: Courtney Cole
Publisher: Lakehouse Press
Get your copy from: Amazon










from goodreads:

24-year old Pax Tate is an asshole. Seriously.  

He’s a tattooed, rock-hard bad-boy with a bad attitude to match. 
But he’s got his reasons. 

His mother died when Pax was seven, leaving a hole in his heart filled with guilt although he doesn’t understand why. What he does know is that he and his dad are left alone and with more issues than they can count.  

As Pax grew up, he tried to be the kid his father always wanted; the perfect golden boy, but it didn’t work. His dad couldn’t overcome his grief long enough to notice and Pax couldn’t keep up the impossible perfect façade.  

So he slipped far, far from it.  

Now, he uses drugs and women to cope with the ugliness, the black void that he doesn’t want to deal with. If he pretends that the emptiness isn’t there, then it isn’t, right? Wrong.  

And it’s never more apparent than when he meets Mila. Sweet, beautiful Mila Hill is the fresh air to his hardened frown, the beauty to his ugly heart. He doesn’t know how to not hurt her, but he quickly realizes that he’s got to figure it out because he needs her to breathe. 

When memories of his mother’s death resurface from where he’s repressed them for so long, Mila is there to catch him when the guilt starts making sense. Mila is the one…the one who can save him from his broken troubled heart; from his issues, from the emptiness.  

But only if he can stop being an asshole long enough to allow it. 
He knows that. And he’s working on it. 
But is that enough to make her stay?

Review:

"Love never fails."

This is a cheat book for me. It's not on my reading list but once I saw the blurb on goodreads & it's suddenly available - I just have the urge to have this one on top of my reading list. ASAP!


Meet Pax, The Asshole
He’s gorgeous, and flawed and sexy.  And I have no idea what I’m getting into.

He didn't wait until I reach the second page to be an ass. 

He's 24 years old and still acted like a boy. Pax is a trust fund baby who had inherited his mother's share in his grandfather's company. He really didn't need to work. So all he does, is numb himself on booze or drugs and enjoy his privacy in his beach sanctuary. He's not a drug addict - or so he says. He only used drugs occasionally and does not crave for it. He only wants numbness - to be oblivious to any emotion or dreams that he might have. His mother died when he was just seven and Pax had constant nightmares, about her, it was something that have haunted him for a very long time. The dream doesn't really end, to his dismay. It was the same dream coming to him over and over again, as if his mother was asking for help. 

Then he met Mila, she was his light to his darkness. He was motivated to change, to cut all his vices and even asked for help. But when he did, and found out the truth - he wasn't really sure if he could handle it.

Meet Mila, The Nice Artist
She’s like a ray of sunshine in this bleak hospital room and I soak her up.  She’s got good, healthy energy and I like the way it feels to talk with her.

She loves the night, and she loves to paint. It was her passion. It was not only Pax that was having issues regarding dreams - Mila also has recurring nightmares about both her parents who died together in a car crash. The accident broke her, and left her heart shattered.

Now here comes Pax whom  she met in a very unexpected circumstances - let me just put it this way: it was not his shiniest moment. She knew he was bad for her, and it would be a big risk to go into a relationship with him. But still, she dove right in.

I love her character: she was nice but very direct and doesn't hesitate to ask. Her courage and steadfastness to stay beside Pax in his darkest moment is admirable. Only a few people can do it - considering what Pax has been doing to himself. She didn't believe that she can change him, but at least he'd be motivated to do it. After all, love can, if not change, can motivate a person to change.

And The Little Red Riding Hood Fell In Love With The Big Bad Wolf
She was his breathe of fresh hair - she was different and he found himself thinking about her all the time. Pax tried to change his ways - just to be worthy of someone like her. But he found out that change wasn't that simple as it seems.

Mila was already warned by her sister not to get involved with someone like Pax. He is bad news, he is trouble, she says. Her complete opposite- nevertheless, she found herself attracted to him. Against logic and advice, she took the risk. Being in love with a broken person who have issues more troubling than hers wasn't a walk in the beach after all.

To End.♥
If You Stay wasn't as long as I expected it to be - but as my cheat book - it was totally worth it! I love authors who gives spice to old plots such as this good girls-fall-for-bad boys & Courtney Cole just did it so well I didn't see the twist coming. I love the character development. Everyone involved had change in one way or the other. It shows that hope is present in the bleakest of time. It proves that love, in whatever circumstances, never fails.

Madison's Story

Favorite Quotes

• "I can’t let you break my heart. I don’t have much of it left."
• "Sometimes, at the least opportune times, the past is an insomniac, alive and well."
• "You’ve seen me at my worst. Maybe you should see me at my best.”
  My words hang between us, heavy and charged, and I don’t know what the fuck I am doing.
  “When are you at your best?” she asks hesitantly. And I can see from the determined look on her face that she is trying hard not to feel intimidated. I’m impressed. She’s like a kitten standing up to a lion. 
  “In bed."
• “She’s like a breath of fresh air. 
  I may be the Big Bad Wolf, but even wolves need to breathe.” 

About the Author

Courtney Cole is a novelist who would eat mythology for breakfast if she could. 

She has a degree in Business, but has since discovered that corporate America is not nearly as fun to live in as fictional worlds. 

Every Last Kiss is her debut novel and she followed it with the rest of The Bloodstone Saga (Every Last Kiss, Fated, With My Last Breath and My Tattered Bonds). 

Courtney lives in quiet suburbia, close to Lake Michigan, with her real-life Prince Charming, her ornery kids (there is a small chance that they get their orneriness from their mother) and a small domestic zoo. 

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