When love doesn’t come easy…

Synopsis

Once upon a time, there was a solitary, grumpy man who would spend his days watching the world around him without ever attracting any attention to himself.

Once upon a time, there was a man who stood aside, imagining he could live someone else’s life and dreaming of something which would never be his; yet he wasn’t ready to give it up.

Once upon a time, there was a man who loved a woman. His only wish was to watch her achieve her dreams – without knowing that the only dream she ever wanted to achieve was him.

Once upon a time, there was a woman afraid that no one would ever be able to love her – without knowing that there was a man who had loved nothing but her for his entire life.

That man is me: Reid Johnson. And that woman is her: my deepest secret. Fine, so I have a few secrets – but it would be best not to reveal them, as they could take everything I have away from me. And without those secrets, I’d have nothing to dream of.

There are two things you should know about me before deciding whether or not to read this story:

I’ve never been the person everyone thinks I am.

I’ve never been the man she believes me to be.

My review

Reid Johnson is not known for his sparkly character. On the contrary, if you would look up ‘grumpy’ in the dictionary, you would find his picture below the description.
But behind his grumpy character, and desire to be left in peace, there is one woman he loves unconditionally. And for Sloan, the only thing Reid wishes is that she achieves her dreams. Sloan is the only woman he has ever loved and ever will love.
But what Reid doesn’t know is that there is only one man that Sloan ever loved and will love. And that man is Reid Johnson. However, how can someone ever fall in love with Sloan as she isn’t ‘the perfect woman’?
And no matter what they feel for each other, Reid knows that the secrets he is keeping, will only push Sloan away and that is not a risk he is willing to take…

While reading this story, I quickly realized that there was something special about our main characters.

First of all, Reid isn’t the kind of guy that you immediately like. For strangers, his behaviour may be even be considered rude, but as a reader, we get to know also his thoughts and we know that his behaviour is more a way of protecting himself for getting hurt.
I found it sweet to see how Reid has always loved Sloan (don’t worry, this isn’t a spoiler!). Even if he made some mistakes in the past, he always looked out for her. And when he knew he couldn’t be the man by her side, he did the next best thing, being there as a friend.

Of course, he screwed up big time, but even when the truth came out, I always kept in mind he always did everything keeping Sloan’s best interest at mind.
Even if some of his behaviour made me frown, making him look stalker-ish, I always had in the back of my head that Reid didn’t always act like a normal person would.

Reading about Sloan, left me with many questions. I couldn’t understand where her thoughts would come from, because there was no indication that could justify her thinking.
There were some small hints making her thinking that no one would ever look at her a little bit more reasonable.  But it’s only towards the end that the full extend of her past and current situation made sense.

And for me, that waiting for Sloan’s reality was taking too long. Yes we know something happened to her, but what and when and why? Those questions kept lingering through my mind a little bit too long.

And this, together with the secrets Reid’s kept, even if understandable at some length, but still not okay, made me not love this story to the full extend. I liked it, yes, and I felt the pain of the characters. But it didn’t sweep me of my feet completely.

This was a part of a series that could be read as a standalone but the other Johnson family members that already had their story make important appearances. And it was a an extra turn off that in Reid’s story there is the suggestion what happened previously, but a small explanation would have been maybe better than a just ‘you know what happened there’. Because if you haven’t read the previous parts, like me, no you don’t know what happened. And that frustrated me a little bit…

But globally, I enjoyed reading this story, about two people, both thinking they are not worthy of love, finally realize that those feelings are mutual. And I liked seeing how Reid, ever against any change, wasn’t bothered with the changes Sloan brought, because those changes gave him everything he ever wished for.
And I loved the gesture he made in the end, that went against every fibre in his body, just to show Sloan how far his feelings for her truly extend.

Most important after finishing this book was that I liked how even people that can be seen as ‘odd’ or ‘strange’ or ‘antisocial’ and ‘broken’, find the perfect matching, missing piece of their puzzle.