Easy by Tammara Webber

Release Date: May 25, 2012
Publisher: Tammara Webber
Age Group: New Adult
(Mature Content Warning)
Format: E-book
Source: Purchased
Pages: 304
Buy: Amazon / Barnes & Noble
Description: Goodreads
A girl who believes trust can be misplaced, promises are made to be broken, and loyalty is an illusion. A boy who believes truth is relative, lies can mask unbearable pain, and guilt is eternal. Will what they find in each other validate their conclusions, or disprove them all?

When Jacqueline follows her longtime boyfriend to the college of his choice, the last thing she expects is a breakup two months into sophomore year. After two weeks in shock, she wakes up to her new reality: she's single, attending a state university instead of a music conservatory, ignored by her former circle of friends, and failing a class for the first time in her life.

Leaving a party alone, Jacqueline is assaulted by her ex's frat brother. Rescued by a stranger who seems to be in the right place at the right time, she wants nothing more than to forget the attack and that night--but her savior, Lucas, sits on the back row of her econ class, sketching in a notebook and staring at her. Her friends nominate him to be the perfect rebound.

When her attacker turns stalker, Jacqueline has a choice: crumple in defeat or learn to fight back. Lucas remains protective, but he's hiding secrets of his own. Suddenly appearances are everything, and knowing who to trust is anything but easy.

What drew me to Easy by Tammara Webber initially was simply the fact that it is classified as “New Adult” – the characters are in college so technically speaking, it’s not YA (don’t get me started on this which is bullshit, to me this is older YA). The book starts with a pretty harrowing/traumatic scene where Jacqueline is assaulted and basically the subject matter centres around rape. This may sound like a bit of a spoiler but I think it’s important to know what you’re getting into, especially if that is something you would prefer not to read about.

I have to say that I thought the story was fantastic and very well written. It will shock you even more to know that Easy is a self published story which I would normally shy away from but I’d heard such good things about the book that I had to give it a try and I was uber impressed. This is the calibre of self published work I’d like to see more of!!

I thoroughly enjoyed slowly getting to know the characters, and I felt like their layers were being peeled back one at a time as the book progressed. Jacqueline makes a decision early on about what happens to her and I have to say that I didn’t fully understand why she made that decision and can only ascertain that perhaps she deals with stress and problems the same way I do which is to pretend it isn’t happening and hope it goes away (FYI just so you know, it never works!). The subject matter was dealt with tastefully and never shied away from conveying just how serious rape is. What I also liked was the fact that the book demonstrated very nicely that you really can’t tell who is a potential rapist.

Lucas is the hero of the story as he comes to Jacqueline’s aid in the beginning and then starts to feel protective towards her. They become fast friends but then there’s Landon, the guy that Jacqueline speaks to online and they have a really flirty relationship. They’re both so different and this confuses her at one point, I mean she has feelings for both but who will she go for? 

Don’t worry though, this is not a love triangle story and you’ll see why. What I will say though is that I loved Lucas, and I want to go on record as saying that lip rings are sexy. (I almost got one once but settled for a fake one which I didn’t use that much because it used to fall out.) He is definitely a tortured soul BUT he’s not a stereotypical bad boy. He rides a motorbike but other than not paying a lot of attention in class, he’s actually a really good guy and that’s sorta refreshing.

I LOVED this story and whilst the content was a little bit more serious than I’m used to, I liked reading something that I perhaps wouldn’t normally read. Easy was well written and flowed so well that I didn’t want to put the book down. I will definitely be watching this author with interest regardless of how she chooses to publish her books. Also, thank you to Tammara for making me realize that there are some good self published novels out there and sometimes you just need to take a chance on them.