Book Review - Love, Lucas

Love, Lucas
Author: Chantele Sedgwick
Standalone
Genres: Contemporary | Young Adult
Release Date: May 5th 2015
No. Pages: 208
Source: Review Copy - Sky Pony Press
Rating:

When Oakley Nelson loses her brother, Lucas, to cancer, she thinks she'll never recover. Between her parents’ arguing and the battle she’s fighting with depression, she feels nothing inside but a hollow emptiness. When Mom suggests they spend the summer in California with Aunt Jo, Oakley isn't sure that a change of scenery will alter anything, but she’s willing to give it a try.

In California, Oakley discovers a sort of safety and freedom in Aunt Jo’s beach house. Once they're settled, Mom hands her a notebook full of letters addressed to her - from Lucas. As Oakley reads one each day, she realizes how much he loved her, and each letter challenges her to be better and to continue to enjoy her life. He wants her to move on.

If only it were that easy.

When it comes to the summary of Love, Lucas, I like many other I'm sure, were completely and utterly in love with the premise of how good this book could be. Just going on the fact that its a story about a young girl who has 1) lost her brother to cancer and 2) is left with a notebook that he wrote in while in hospital, is enough to interest you right? Well it was for me. When I saw this on Edelweiss for direct download I would be lying if I told you that my original intentions of downloading it were pure, they weren't. I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to review some books for Edelweiss, thus boosting my feedback rating (I know I isn't the same as Netgalley, but there must be something keeping score). That might be my reasons for wanting to download it, however after I read the summary I was just thankfully that would I expected to be a heart wrenching book was available without the hassle of requesting. I wouldn't say I had any expectations as such before I started reading Love, Lucas, but sadly I was hoping for more.

Right from the first page, which happens to be Lucas's funeral, we see just how the loss of her brother is effecting Oakley. She is shut off from her family and her friends, leaving herself completely isolated. Oakley isn't grieving properly, her parents are fighting and seem to forget they have another child to look after, so when her mum suggest getting away for bit and going to spend time with her aunt, Oakley agrees. A chance to get away from all the memories at home and be by the beach? Why wouldn't she. Its becomes apparent very early on that's she just swapped her 4 walls for different ones, sleeping in late and not going out of her room for hours, until her mum hands her a notebook that Lucas's wanted her to have, something that will help her move on.

There is just no denying that this book is a heartfelt, genuine and touching story. But through out it all Oakley kept punishing herself for being happy when she should be at home thinking bout Lucas, never mind that he had actually told her more than one (in the notebook) that he didn't want her to just sit around and do nothing, he wanted her to start living again. Though it may be common in stories like these, what isn't common however is how annoying I found it. Carson is part of the reason that Oakley seems to be learning to deal with what happened, but anytime she isn't focusing on her grief and is having fun with him, she uses it as a reason to build up her walls again and because of this you have a constant back and forth between falling for someone but trying to stay away, creating and insta-love that I feel could have been avoided.

I wanted to like this book a lot more, really I did. I'm not exactly sure why but I couldn't relate to either of the characters, I just felt like sometimes nothing was really happening as far a their development and a lot of unnecessary drama in the book got in the way of that. This book had such potential, it was sweet and funny at times and it was a really nice light read, but sadly it just didn't wow me. I can say that I am looking forward to reading more by Chantele Sedgwick, her writing and ideas show a lot of promise, I just think that less is more and if she toned down the intensity of some of the situations in the story it would be more enjoyable and believable and not so in your face.