Review: Breakable by Tammara Webber

Title: Breakable (Contours of the Heart #2)
Author: Tammara Webber
Date of publication: 6 May 2014
Genre:  Romance, New Adult, College

Author's links: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads
Purchase links: Amazon / B&N / iBooks / Kobo / Book Depository

My rating: 4 Stars

Synopsis

He was lost and alone. Then he found her.

And the future seemed more fragile than ever.

As a child, Landon Lucas Maxfield believed his life was perfect and looked forward to a future filled with promise — until tragedy tore his family apart and made him doubt everything he ever believed.

All he wanted was to leave the past behind. When he met Jacqueline Wallace, his desire to be everything she needed came so easy…

As easy as it could be for a man who learned that the soul is breakable and that everything you hoped for could be ripped away in a heartbeat.

Review

Easy was one of the first New Adult books I read and I really enjoyed it. I thought the book completed the story of Lucas and Jacqueline and I didn't expect a sequel or another boo about them. So, when I learned that there will be a companion novel to Easy told from Lucas' POV I was both excited and a little weary. The stories  told from the other character's POV are very popular right now, but most of them are not successful since they  often feel like you are reading the same book.

I'm very, very happy to tell you that this was not the case with Breakable and it is a worthy companion novel to Easy which complemented the original story in the perfect way.

The narrative is divided in two parts - Lucas'POV (present day) and Landon's POV (his teenage years after the tragedy in his life and before meeting Jaqueline). I loved the Landon parts best of all. They gave insight in young Landon and how the death of his mother and later the attitude of his father made him the man he was when he met Jacqueline.

His suffering, his troubles at school and his first love (or so he thought at the time) were very convincngly presented. I felt deeply for young Landon who had to deal with his guilt and pain on his own. His friend Boyce was a  great supporting character and I enjoyed their relationship a lot. Still, I felt this plotline was left incomplete. I'm curious how things worked out for Boyce and I'd be happy for him to get a book of his own.

The part of Lucas were interesting and they dd show all the conflicting emotions he felt for Jacqueline since the first moment he saw. Yet they told things were already new and hence, they were less interesting. Lucas' fixation on Jacqueline seemed a bit stalkerish, especially at the beginning and his duplicity did bother me as much as they did in book 1. At the same time, Lucas was very gentle and considerate with her, he never pushed her into anything she wasn't ready for.

Unlike the relationship with Boyce, Lucas' friendship with Joseph seemed to lack depth and it didn't add anything to the story or to his character. 

Another minor quibble I had was the lack of dialogue/communication between Lucas and Jacqueline. We've already read it in Easy and it was probably omitted to avoid repetition but this made the narrative seemed disjointed at times and it  didn't flow as smooth as in book 1.

Overall, it's a great New Adult story, very emotional and intense with sensual, yet gentle love scenes. The book explores some heavy issues of violence against women, family issues, dealing with grief and guilt, and ends with a very optimistic happy-end. It's a must read for all fans of Easy and New Adult romances in general.