Title: Aflame
Series: Falling Away bk 4
Author: Penelope Douglas
Genre: New Adult, Cotemporary
From the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Bully, Until You, Rival, and Falling Away comes the sizzling conclusion to the Fall Away series.
The tables have turned. Now I have the power—and it’s his turn to beg…
Everyone wants to be me.
Maybe it’s the sway of my skirt or the way I flip my hair, but I don’t care. Even though their attention is the last thing I crave, I just can’t stop. I dominate the track, the speed rattles my bones, and the wind and the crowd screams my name.
I’m her. The girl driver. The queen of the race. And I’m surviving—something he thought I’d never do.
They all still talk about him. Did you see Jared Trent on T.V? What did you think of his last race, Tate? When is he coming back to town, Tate?
But I refuse to care too much. Because when Jared does come home, I won’t be here.
Tatum Brandt is gone. I’m someone new.
Thoughts: Penelope Douglas has landed on my radar and is going nowhere so long as she keeps turning out characters like she has in this series. Jared and Tatum are two of the most compelling characters I’ve read and I want so much more of them. Yes I know this series is over, and we got an epilogue that was years later but….I STILL WANT MORE.
The story of Jared and Tatum is one that I will warn you will take you on an emotional journey. You will laugh, cheer, cry, rage, and hope that these two characters will eventually find their HEA.
There is a lot going on between these two and as much as I hurt for Tate and what went down, I have to be honest and say that my heart hurt so much more for Jared. I totally understood where Jared was coming from at the end of Falling Away and the beginning of this story.
My main issue was this… if Tate really loved Jared she would have seen what all of his friends saw. He was sinking and fast. Instead of listening to him and offering him the time he needed to find what made him as happy as her desire to be a doctor she kicks her out of his life completely.
Then there was how his best friends also cut him from their lives. He’d been there for them when they needed him, and yet when he needed them they all abandoned him. While I got the reason why, I disagreed with it 100%.
I’m not going to lie when the truth about what Jared had gone through in the last two years and what had happened six months after he left I was all yes. Its about time they all understood just how much their actions hurt him.
For me, the parts from Tate’s POV were okay, but I really loved Jared’s POV and his journey.
If you’ve been a fan of this series you won’t want to miss this book. If you’re new to Penelope Douglas you really need to read all of these books together to really understand the love story that is Jared and Tate.
Grade A (yes for all my not liking of how Tate and Jared’s friends treated him I loved this book enough to give it that grade)
