"Always wanting to make things easier than Alex deserved, only to make them more difficult in the end."

21 year old (Alex) Alexandria Van Kirk has big notions of love. Vacillating between being brave and owning her heart to living under her impression of love, her reactions and subsequent decisions would leave readers wanting.

The book is presented in 2 parts, each part focusing on the characters she was involved with.
In part 1, Alex crossed paths with Dani, the barista who was bold, knew who and what she wanted, fought tooth and nail to make her presence known and was endearing to say the least.

In Part 2, Frankie, the woman who waited and waited for Alex to own up to her feelings is the epitome of patience. Her shared history with a younger Alex made her someone you wanted to shake to her senses for she deserved so much better and more.

The author grasped me with the build up of her characters. You cannot capture an audience without getting into the head of readers. That being said, she rattled me with the epilogue.

This was painful for me to review for i became far too invested in Dani. I cannot visualize what goes on in the heads of writers, how their characters speak to them, however i found Alex lacking and mindless. I was left with the impression of a young adult sowing her wild oats with no care towards the mess she left behind.

Did anyone truly take centre stage? Probably Alex.
Was it brutal? Yes.
Was it real? Unfortunately yes too. We are all capable of being hurt and hurting as such is the reality of life. I wish the book ended with a cliffhanger. Or for the 2 parts to be switched.

I just reviewed Liquid Courage by Stephanie Shea. #LiquidCourage #NetGalley

2.25 Stars. This was disappointing to say the least. I saw that the early reviews –by friends whose opinions I trust- were not very good for this book. I went in cautiously, but still hoping that I would enjoy this. I’ve loved books that others didn’t and I’ve disliked books that were popular, so maybe something similar would happen here. Instead, I’m sorry to say that this book was not a match for me at all.

The book is actually in two parts. Part one, which is exactly 45% of the book, was actually quite good. This story should have been turned into a novella and ended right when part one was over. I would have rated it at least 3.5 stars if not more. The problem is once part two started, the book went downhill and just kept going. I would actually recommend to people who might read this book, read part one, enjoy it, and stop the book there. I really wished that is what I would have done but instead I kept reading.

In the second half of the book, a random person enters the book and we are stuck in never ending flashbacks to try to make up for the fact that we don’t know, or care at all, about this new person. It’s like Shea wrote this book backwards. You don’t start long, seemingly to have nothing to do with the point of the book, flashbacks after the 50% mark. If you want us to care about this random character, than you start the book with the characters as teenagers, introducing us to this person, and then you put us in the present time for the rest of the book. If you do it this way, when this random stranger pops up, she’s not an actual stranger because we know who she is and we might actually care about her. Instead, she was just a random person taking up pages that needed to be spent on other characters. This was such a bazaar writing choice that I can’t get my head around it.

I’m a big fan of epilogues, especially for romance books. The one thing about epilogues is that they are not endings and should not be used as one. An epilogue is a bonus scene for us readers and in romance they normally show the couple getting engaged, married, having babies, or some other sweet romantic bonus moment. Unfortunately, this book decided to use the epilogue as an ending. It felt extremely gimmicky, and almost like it was there to trick us readers. It was a totally lame ending and just another thing that ruined this book for me.

I could go into how the main character was flawed –partially for reasons I still don’t even get- and that she showed no growth or character redemption. I could get into how hard it was telling what were flashbacks and what was current so I would have to stop reading and then reread certain parts. And I could go into how we never truly got to learn anything about who the “random stranger” character is now as an adult, but honestly I’m just feeling a bit exhausted. It’s weird to say but I found reading this book and writing this review pretty draining. I hate to be so negative when this is Shea’s full-length debut, but I have to be honest.

It won’t be a surprise but this is a book that I can’t recommend. If you are reading this book I would seriously suggest stopping when part one ends. This review would have been so different if this story would have been part one as a novella only. And because I liked the beginning, I can see potential in Shea, I just don’t know how this story got so off the tracks for my personal tastes.

I read a lot and hate DNFing a book - but unfortunately I just can't finish this one. It pains me to do this because the author is clearly good with words, but I can't get past the storyline.

The book is split into two parts and I was quite enjoying the first part, but as soon as the second part of the book started I just became increasingly frustrated with the main character and the way the storyline took a turn.

I may end up returning to this in the future but I don't think it'll be soon. Whilst this book doesn't work for me it's perfectly possible others would enjoy this. I also wouldn't rule out trying another work by this author in the future.

I received an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 stars. As far as I know this is the authors first full-length novel and I hate writing negative reviews, especially for a debut novel, but this book didn’t work well for me. I liked the underlying ideas, but I think the author wanted a bit too much with the various storylines and the amount of emotions (angst), and I didn’t like some of the story choices.

I would describe this as a NA coming of age novel. Alex is a 22-year old student, finding her way to love. To get there she has to evaluate what it is that she wants in a relationship and face her past, her family (and especially her homophobic mother), and herself (as she struggles with self-acceptance and self-harm). She is a romantic soul but an extreme introvert who has serious trouble assessing and communicating her emotions and her coping mechanism is to run.

The book starts off with Alex lusting after her best friend Ryan and, at the same time, having all these romantic feelings of sunsets, serious conversations and cuddling with Dani, a barista at her favorite café. From the first moment you’re immediately thrown into all of Alex’s emotions and the angst level is super high. While I do not mind a good dose of angst or an emotionally complex character, I need to understand where this angst is coming from and I need to have a feeling that there is cause for this angst. Unfortunately, that was not clear for me in this book. To me, Alex’ emotions were all over the place (including her romantic feelings). Obviously, she was struggling with her emotions so much that I just didn’t understand it anymore (she didn’t either I think).

The book is divided into two parts, the first part mainly deals with her relationship with Ryan and Dani and the family dynamics in the present. The second part continues with her family history and also introduces a new character from her past. The present and flashbacks were more or less alternating in the second part of the book and I was not a fan of the constant flashbacks as I felt they were interrupting the flow of the main story and sometimes it wasn’t clear to me whether I was reading the past or the present.

As indicated, I didn’t like some of the story choices, the biggest one being how the book ended. I can’t say much without giving spoilers, it is a sort of happy ending, but it did not feel like a happy ending to me. I think a happy ending was not possible with the created situation. For those who want to know what I mean, read the following spoiler. In the end, Alex chooses “the other woman”. The entire book I was rooting for the girl she chooses in the beginning of the book. I was hoping for them to be together and it seriously looked that way (confessing their love for each other and all). Then all of the sudden Alex ends up with someone else in the end, who she is again totally in love with. How things ended with the first girl is discussed in 1 or 2 lines and that’s how she is removed from the story. While I liked “the other woman”, and could even believe in their relationship (if I hadn’t read about the previous relationship) this turn of events was anticlimactic for me and I could not really believe anymore that this relationship would last.

This book was not a good match for me, so personally I can’t recommend it, but there were some surprising twists and turns and there might be readers that will enjoy this book better than I did.

2.5 Stars
TW for homophobia, internalized homophobia, and self-harm.
I think ‘Liquid Courage’ is one of the very few romance books where I did not want a happy ending with any of the relationships presented. I would have been happier to see the main character, Alex, single and working on herself.
This felt more like two books to me. In the first half, we have the small triangle between Alex, her best friend Ryan, and Dani, her coffee shop barista. It had the angst and emotions I expected with a new adult romance. There were some issues with this part of the story but I ignored them hoping things would get better. This is a new adult story so I just assumed it was part of them being young and transitioning into adulthood.
Then all of a sudden, 40% into the story, a completely new love interest, Frankie, and the onset of flashback scenes gets introduced. For the rest of the story, Dani and Ryan basically disappear and we get to know Frankie, Alex’s high school love, mostly through flashbacks. Usually I don’t mind flashbacks, but with these not starting until 40%, it was a little jarring. On top that, they were nonlinear so I was never completely sure when and where in the storyline they were happening. I needed a timeline of their past to try to be able to follow everything. There’s not a lot that happens in the present scenes with Frankie except to introduce a new flashback so I didn’t feel like I got to know her as she is now.
Now to the reasoning as to why I didn’t want a happy ending. Alex was not a likeable character for me. She came off as very selfish and unsure of herself. This leads her to hurting not only herself (emotionally as well as physically with her cutting herself), but her love interests and friends too. She was all over the place emotionally and was consumed with internalized homophobia for most of the story. That’s real and true for a lot of people but it was continuous for the whole story and there was never any relief from it. It made the book very heavy and I don’t feel like we got a payoff for it. I wanted to see Alex truly accept herself and to see a therapist. By the ending, she had gotten better with the homophobia but she was still having issues with being honest with herself and others.
Almost all of her thoughts were only known to the reader because it’s told from her point of view. She didn’t have a single meaningful conversation with anyone else until the epilogue. She’s forgiven for it because it’s “just her personality” by Dani and Frankie but honestly, how could any of them have a healthy relationship if she won’t open up to them? I felt Dani and Frankie were both more mature and too good for her in the end. I don’t mind flawed characters but I want to see some growth and change within them. I never got that feeling with Alex.
I received an ARC from NetGalley and NineStar Press in an exchange for an honest review.

Two stars. I'm actually sorry about how honest I'm about to be when this is the first review. This had all the angst of a typical new adult book, and then multiplied tenfold.
The first third, or something around that mark, fit with my expectations. Mostly. I expected the BFF to have the advantage over the barista, but you only need to see them interact once to know who the better choice is. I'm glad with how things proceed with Dani, up until that point. I get the impression that Alex doesn't deserve her, and is not ready for a relationship in general, but we're going somewhere. If this had been the story, I would have given it three and a half stars, maybe four.
And then Frankie enters, and the plot, as I understood it, completely changes. (You realize that everything you thought the book was about is wrong, and furthermore, you're shipping the "wrong" couple.) The most confusing part is the flashbacks. First, the narration does a poor job of segueing into them, and they aren't in a different font or marked by section breaks, so 90% of the time I spend pages frustratedly trying to distinguish past from present. There are so many flashbacks, and they go on for pages at a time, to the point where it would be more efficient and much more readable for the author to have just told us that part of the story in one chunk, and then done a time skip to the present. That's the only option if you're going to flesh out the backstory in such detail.
I really didn't like how Frankie made the first third of the story basically irrelevant. It was never about Dani, but at least I understand what role she plays compared to Frankie. Ryan's existence was entirely pointless, other than extra angst when Alex is dating Dani. It might have been less misleading to establish Dani in the beginning as Alex's girlfriend and exclude the part altogether. Alex's fear and internalized homophobia would still have been evident even if we hadn't seen her struggling while dating Dani. It's not like Alex shows us anything in the first third that isn't consistent with the rest of the book. She's a very static character up until the epilogue.
The epilogue which, since I've brought it up, just got on my nerves. The epilogue isn't there to draw out the ending for the sake of drama, so there shouldn't have been a complete turnaround from the last chapter. If you're going to end with uncertainty, follow through with it. Otherwise, there should have been more to convince us that it was going to work this time around.
I didn't enjoy reading this and I can't help but feel tricked by the description. There were a few points in the later pages that I considered leaving it as a DNF. I don't like leaving negative reviews, and I apologize if the author gets to read this.