A Mess of Reason by A. Wilding Wells

A Mess of Reason
by A. Wilding Wells

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Published by: Henry Holt & Company Publish Date: July 2, 2015
Genre: New Adult, Friends-Turned-Lovers
Rating: 3.5/4 Stars
NOTICE: I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

There are three sides to our story: mine, hers, and the truth.

Best friends since age 15, Scout and Tess, have always loved one another as more than friends, but never took a chance on the other. This is the story, told from both points of view, of love finally finding a way.

This is a hard book to review for me, because there are parts that I really loved and parts that I could've done without. I'll just spell it out for you:

You Won't Like This Book If:

• Flowery, wordy metaphors aren't your thing. If you can just get past the first chapter (where it's REALLY bad), I assure you that it tones down a bit. The metaphors are still present, but not as bad as the first chapter. If that kind of thing bugs you, you won't be able to swallow this book. And speaking of swallowing . . .
• MCs drinking shots as if they're drinking water doesn't sit well with you. I don't mind some drinking once in awhile, but I often found myself wondering how their relationship would be if there wasn't so much alcohol involved. They both verged on alcoholism in my opinion.
• The Male MC spends a lot of time carrying around the Female MC and/or pulling her on his lap and/or describes her constantly as tiny and/or calls her "Baby" a heck of a lot doesn't ring true for you. No explanation needed there, although I never thought of a 5'7" female as tiny. That's taller than me and I don't feel tiny.
• The MCs spend a lot of their time kissing in the name of friendship isn't realistic to you. I've had some male friends in my day and never did we ever kiss each other unless we were officially fooling around. The MCs spend a lot of time kissing in the name of friendship, pretending that that's normal - then wondering "Gee, I don't know if they like me as more than a friend." If they're constantly trying to make out with you, they probably like you as more than a friend.
• The female MC spends a lot of time crying and/or pushing away the male MC is annoying to you. It was sometimes annoying to me and sometimes not.
• You'd sometimes just like the author to GET TO THE POINT in a scene AKA although I like sexual tension, sometimes the scene just went on for too long in my opinion.
• It bugs you when author's throw something super random into an otherwise well-detailed scenario AKA what happens at the wedding in this particular book.

You Will Like This Book If:

• T-T-T-Tension (to quote Rocky Horror) between two people is more fun to read about than actual sex scenes (although there are plenty of those). I happen to like this and felt the author employed very creative ways of achieving this.
• H*O*T not-sex-but-almost-sex scenes make up much of the book giving you something to look forward to when they FINALLY make love. Kind of related to the above bullet point, but I figured this deserved its own line.
• Surprise secrets thrill you. Yes - secrets are supposed to be private thus making them secretive, but we've all read 100 books in which the MC has a "secret" that always turns out to be a secret we've already read about. Writers just aren't creative these days. I was taken aback and delighted that AWW created her own unique secret. Bravo!

Now, while my pet peeves list is greater than my like list, overall I really liked this book and gave it a pretty high rating. While not up to the level of my favorite NA books, the International Series by Chanel Cleeton, this book was a good runner up to what I liked about those books. I think I may purchase one of AWW's other books on my own. :)