Review: Catch Me by Claire Contreras

My Thoughts

Enjoyable and absorbing!
A story about finding your own way through acceptance and love.

• Catch Me: Amazon | Amazon UK | B&N

Synopsis

In the past, I’ve always been given everything I’ve wanted, but nothing that I truly needed. I’ve experienced a lot of things in my twenty-five years, everything except the one thing I want. It’s the one thing that can’t be bought. It can’t even be taken, it has to be given. And nobody has ever given it to me, not really anyway. 

Not until him.

Music is the center of both our lives, but as he found his place in it, I lost my way. He soared, while I spiraled down a destructive path.
I lost myself in more ways than I can count.

The ironic thing is that I didn’t realize how lost I was until he found me. 

And now that he has, I have to wonder if he’ll stay around long enough to catch me.

My Review

Catch Me had a really intriguing story line. With a back drop in the music industry, it had some really captivating moments. I love how music threaded through the story, helping to bring our protagonists together. It was a really fresh approach I thoroughly enjoyed.

“Nobody wants to acknowledge that they’re not good enough for somebody.”

Our female heroine, Brooklyn, has led a life largely controlled by her parents. Her mother cares only about how she looks and what she wears, failing to be any kind of real support to her. Her father owns his own record label and cares only about his work. Brooklyn has an innate skill at scouting talent and her father uses her to grow his business, paying little attention to her own desires. With a crappy mother and a father who is never around, she’s grown up feeling that she’s never good enough, never deserving of love and attention. She’s channeled a lot of her time and energy into her own mic business, but that doesn’t really play into her father’s thoughts when he basically tells her he needs her to move to New York and work for the family business, Harmon Records.

“I seem to have misplaced my heart so long ago and I don’t know where to even begin looking for it.”

The story built slowly and steadily, as we see her past duel with her present, fighting to live her own life, reaching for the control and confidence she desperately desires. In addition to constant disappointment, Brooklyn has also been consumed by sadness. We gather that she lost her best friend, Ryan, years back and she hasn’t been the same since. He’s been the person who has been there for her through everything. He’s been real. He was her everything and now he’s gone. “Floating around just trying to survive,” she’s been barely holding on, thrust into the dark side of the music industry… the grungy guys that have used her, the drugs. And although she’s bravely put that behind her, she isn’t really living yet either.

“Sadness is my home, I belong in it, it belongs in me; we are one and the same.”

For a girl who seems to live a life of privilege and has it all with a great, sexy job and a successful business, what she needs the most is love and acceptance. On her way to New York, she runs into one of her closest friends and ex-boyfriend, Shea. Shea is a musician with Harmon Records… someone she signed on and has been friends with since they were teenagers. It’s evident that they both still care deeply for each other, but in the process of getting her life together, Brooklyn knows that he will never commit to her… that what they haven’t isn’t the stuff that lasts. And then wham. The guy that accompanies Shea stops her in her tracks. He’s intense. He’s gorgeous. He’s all man and when their eyes meet you can practically see the sparks come off the page.

“I don’t know what it is about him that makes me want to grab his face in place so that he’ll never look at anything but me. I’m not sure what bothers me more: the realization or the fact I can’t remember feeling this way about anyone before him.”

Nick is a great character. He’s solid. Confident. Successful. Determined. He’s worked hard to build a great life for himself and whereas Brooklyn is still finding her way through life, Nick seems to know exactly who he is and what he wants. The more they find themselves around each other, the more a relationship begins to form as the desire between them crackles and burns. The story has great angst… great pull and I couldn’t wait for them to just give themselves over to each other. She finds herself falling for him, of course, but just when the happily ever after seems to be within reach, truths are revealed and the hope she had shatters.

“It’s amazing how you can live without somebody your entire life and then you meet them, let them in, let them take over your every thought, and then the moment they’re gone, you feel like you’re fucking dying.”

The last part of the book definitely had me at the edge of my seat, waiting to see what happens. Claire Contreras skillfully throws in some unexpected moments that had me really feeling for Brooklyn.

Overall, I really liked the book. It had a great mix of angst, romance, sexiness, heartbreak and passion. I did feel that some aspects of the story line deserved more attention, while in contrast some of Brooklyn’s internal musings seemed a little too drawn out. There were some big truths revealed that I felt called for more significant reactions and scenes. I also wanted to delve a little deeper into the relationship with her parents and see that come to some sort of a climax. I think it was just a matter of fine-tuning the depth and balance of parts of the story line to make this an even stronger book. Nonetheless, it kept me fully engaged and I really enjoyed it! I definitely recommend it as a captivating, sexy standalone!

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