NEW ADULT MONDAYS: Ten Tiny Breaths

The New Adult genre - their bad boys and big problems and epic loves make them engrossing tales that are so easy to lose yourself in. What's not to love about that? And, now, thanks to the cool chicks at Bewitched Bookworms, we can show these books the love they deserve in a weekly feature - New Adult Mondays.

Ten Tiny Breaths (Ten Tiny Breaths #1), by K. A. Tucker
Published December 11, 2012
Publisher:  Atria Books
Format: e-book - obtained from NetGalley
Genre:  New Adult Contemporary Romance
To Buy:  Amazon  * Barnes & Noble * Book Depository

Rating:  4 STARS

(From Goodreads) Kacey Cleary’s whole life imploded four years ago in a drunk-driving accident. Now she’s working hard to bury the pieces left behind—all but one. Her little sister, Livie. Kacey can swallow the constant disapproval from her born-again aunt Darla over her self-destructive lifestyle; she can stop herself from going kick-boxer crazy on Uncle Raymond when he loses the girls’ college funds at a blackjack table. She just needs to keep it together until Livie is no longer a minor, and then they can get the hell out of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

But when Uncle Raymond slides into bed next to Livie one night, Kacey decides it’s time to run. Armed with two bus tickets and dreams of living near the coast, Kacey and Livie start their new lives in a Miami apartment complex, complete with a grumpy landlord, a pervert upstairs, and a neighbor with a stage name perfectly matched to her chosen “profession.” But Kacey’s not worried. She can handle all of them. What she can’t handle is Trent Emerson in apartment 1D.

Kacey doesn’t want to feel. She doesn’t. It’s safer that way. For everyone. But sexy Trent finds a way into her numb heart, reigniting her ability to love again. She starts to believe that maybe she can leave the past where it belongs and start over. Maybe she’s not beyond repair.

But Kacey isn’t the only one who’s broken. Seemingly perfect Trent has an unforgiveable past of his own; one that, when discovered, will shatter Kacey’s newly constructed life and send her back into suffocating darkness.

Ten Tiny Breaths had emotion wrapped in feels and served with a side of intensity. For a new adult book, the gut-wrenching back story was one of the tougher ones to read about, which made the characters' journey to contentment all the more satisfying when I reached the end. 

Kacey is a tough cookie, and it's no wonder given the car crash that she survived four years earlier. the crash that also claimed the lives of her parents, her BFF and her boyfriend. She's made a move to Miami with her little sister to try and put the past behind her, but all she's really doing is some major avoidance. And then she meets Trent who manages to bust open her carefully placed composure. 

It was very hard for me to like Kacey. Because of her past, she's distant, hardened and just plain mean a lot of the time. On one hand, you have to forgive her for that. The crash she was in was horrible, and I would imagine that that would totally mess with anyone's psyche. But, I really like to connect with the characters I read about in some way, and I found it hard to connect with Kacey. 

I guess that's a sign of some good writing here by K. A. Tucker. Maybe a little TOO good. The characters in the book - Kacey's new friend Storm, her sister Livie, and even her eventual boyfriend Trent - also found it hard to connect with Kacey. Usually, I endear myself to characters through their internal monologue. But, Kacey's thoughts were just as self-destructive as her actions, and that made her hard to like. 

Trent was an enigma. He was very secretive and exorbitantly patient with Kacey (who knows why - she was not very nice to him for a very long time). You knew there had to be a reason why, and fairly early on in the book, I had a guess as to what that reason was. I liked Trent well enough, but for some reason, he didn't seem very colorful or alive to me.

Toward the end, when Kacey's and Trent's world inevitably comes crashing down around them, THAT is when both these characters started to become amazing. When all was revealed and they both got over themselves, I was intrigued and beguiled by both of them. The epilogue was perfect and the absolute best ending to the story. 

The side characters were one of the best parts of Ten Tiny Breaths. Storm was funny and surprising. Ben and Cain were so likeable and intriguing - I can't wait to read their stories. But, first Livie's story. Stay tuned tomorrow for a review of One Tiny Breath... (psst... it's a 5-star review!)