Review: The One You Fight For by Roni Loren

Title: The One You Fight For 

(The Ones Who Got Away #3)

Author: Roni Loren

Date of publication: 1 Jan 2019

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Author's links:

Website / Twitter / Facebook / Goodreads

My rating: 5 Stars

Blurb

 

How hard would you fight for the one you love?

Taryn Landry was there that awful night fourteen years ago when Long Acre changed from the name of a town to the title of a national tragedy. Everyone knows she lost her younger sister. No one knows it was her fault. Since then, psychology professor Taryn has dedicated her life's work to preventing something like that from ever happening again. Falling in love was never part of the plan...

Shaw Miller has spent more than a decade dealing with the fallout of his brother's horrific actions. After losing everything―his chance at Olympic gold, his family, almost his sanity―he's changed his name, his look, and he's finally starting a new life. As long as he keeps a low profile and his identity secret, everything will be okay, right?

When the world and everyone you know defines you by one catastrophic tragedy...

How do you find your happy ending?

Review

This is the third book in the series but I read it first and loved it so much that it made me go back and read book 1 asap (spoiler, I loved that one too).

This series deals with a heavy subject matter (CWs are at the end of this review). I liked how the MCs' trauma was handled and the story showed them as human beings with complex emotions. The author managed to tell a moving tale of two traumatised people falling in love without making it into tragedy porn.

I loved both MCs, she is the school shooting surviour who lost her younger sister and dedicated her  life and her work as a psychology professor to help put an end to school violence. He is the shooter's older brother. Based on their past, they are two people most unlikely to ever get together. But they are more that the trauma they share, they have their flaws and strengths, their dreams and nightmares and ambitions and hopes.  

Their love is passionate, angsty, they both carry lots of regrets ad very much live in the past. Strange as it may seem, they help each other move on from the tragedy. I appreciate the hopefulness of the story. The support they got from their friends (hers were also survivours of the shooting) is something I loved in the story. They were dealing with their demons on their own and together but they also had people by their side who supported them unconditionally (unlike their families).

I think it is a great series of contemporary romance, I haven't read book 2 yet but I'm planning on doing it soon. I can heartily recommend the series but only if you can handle the subject matter

CW: violence, school shooting (flashbacks), panic attacks, grief

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