Review: Learning to Live by Kira Adams

Summary:

Ciera Nelson wants what any other outcast wants, invisibility. If she can just make it through the rest of her year with minor incidents and a head held low she will be able to put the hell hole they call school in her rearview. Unfortunately, life has different plans for her.

Topher Carlson is one of the biggest jocks on campus. All the guys want to be him, all the girls want to claim him. When secrets are uncovered, Topher’s life spins wildly out of control.

They are far from friends when the school year begins, but each will impact the other’s life in ways they never dreamed possible. Can Ciera help Topher realize that popularity and status mean nothing in the real world? Can Topher help Ciera learn the true meaning of living?

Sometimes you have to let go to really live. Sometimes being alive means taking risks.

Publication Date: January 2015

I haven’t read a good tearjerker in a long time and Learning to Live left me a bawling mess. I figured the book would be sad, but I was shocked over how devastated I was left by the end. This is the first book I read by Kira Adams, but it certainly won’t be the last.

Ciera and Topher are definitely characters that grow on you over time—especially Topher. Topher was a gigantic a-hole at the beginning of the book and some of the things he did to Ciera were pretty much unforgivable. But as I got to know Topher and learn about why he was such a head case, he earned my sympathy. For Ciera, I really wanted to reach into the book and shake her from time to time. Her forgiving nature definitely made her too saint-like.

CIera and Topher had good chemistry once they got over their issues. I liked that their relationship was gradual and that Topher had to really work to earn her trust. The book is told in dual POV, which was a huge plus. The reader got a glimpse of how their perceptions about one another evolved as they spent more time together.

SPOILER ALERT: This book is really, really a lot like A Walk to Remember. And since I adore the book and the movie, I was definitely into the storyline big time. And just like A Walk to Remember, I was hoping and praying for a different ending. I did see that there’s a novella about Topher that happens two years after the events of Learning to Live, but I don’t think I can move on from my heartache to read it. END OF SPOILER

The pacing in the book is solid and I read it in probably less than four sittings. Once you reach the final third mark, there’s no putting the book down. The epilogue was beautiful and tragic and will definitely leave you with a book hangover.

Rating: 4.5/5 Stars

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of the novel for review!