By: Chloe Walsh
“I once read somewhere that we mature with damage, not with age. If that’s the case, I was an old-age pensioner in the emotional stakes.”
Yes, I am late to the Boys of Tommen series. I know! And for those of you who are equally as late, here is a quick synopsis: Shannon Lynch has been bullied all her life, so she transfers schools to Tommen College. and she just wants to hide. On her first day, she has a run in with Johnny Kavanaugh, popular and well known rugby player who is trying to further his career. What people don’t know is that he’s injured. This starts an awkward and complicated friendship. There’s an undeniable pull between them; he feels the need to protect her.
Soo…. please don’t come for me. But there is absolutely no reason that this book needed to be over 600 pages long, and then need a second book that’s nearly 700 pages long. I haven’t read the second one yet, but I probably will because there were definitely aspects of this book that I was very invested in and I want to see them play out.
If you like a slow burn, then this is the book for you. I mean slow from page 1 to page 600 (not exactly). I was waiting for more to happen through the book. Honestly, there was so much in there that didn’t push the plot forward and could have been cut out. I found myself not wanting to read at times.
I did love both Johnny and Shannon. I loved Claire and Lizzie, Shannon’s friends, her brother Joey, Johnny’s mom is great, Johnny’s friends.. almost all of the characters were fantastic. There’s a few I didn’t like, but if you read the book, then you know why. I loved Johnny’s internal struggle with his feelings and what that meant for him. I love how at first Shannon was sort of shy with Johnny but then towards to later half of the book and towards the end, she got bolder.
There were some really awesome moments between the two in this book as well. It just took forever to get there between all the nonsense that was in between. Like – for instance, why have Bella be more of a character than she really needed to be?
I really wanted to LOVE this book after seeing so many amazing reviews about it. I think this could be a really awesome book if there was some editing done, and potentially combining the first two books into one. I’ll reserve judgment on that until I read the second one. However, I feel like there may be a whole lot of nothing happening in that book too.
Please don’t come for me – I always post honest review and this is me being honest.
Publish Date: September 26, 2023
Find the book here.
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