Great Read

I received a copy from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This was an enjoyable read. The story is about a girl who had a troubled past. Also, it is a forbidden romance story, which was also intriguing to me. I really liked Olivia. She was fierce, and I really liked how she acted even though she has been through many things. Will is another great character. I thought he had his sweet moments. I really liked how protective of Olivia he was. Their romance was more of a slow burn. I really liked how they work on their relationship and was there for each other. I am happy that it was a happy ending for them. Overall, a great read.

Seriously, I've had this book since it first released and I've only just read it now!! I could thoroughly kick myself! I couldn't put down Olivia and Will's story. I totally blew off a work day to binge-read it! LOL

"I don't think I've ever wanted something quite this much, yet I'm absolutely not allowed to have it."

Olivia Finnegan is a new transfer from a D1 to a D3 college. She comes with a big black cloud over her head and an unsavoury reputation. Will Langstrom, her new running coach doesn't want her there, no matter how talented she is. She spells trouble from the moment he lays eyes on her. They clash, butt heads, exchange harsh words, but the moment that Will sees a tiny sliver of vulnerability in her, he realises that Olivia is much more than her incredibly brittle façade portrays. In fact, what he sees barely scratches the surface to all her secrets.

"You already make everything better...And you're the only one who ever has."

Oh my gosh! This book was amazing! I loved everything about it. The forbidden aspect, Olivia's demons, Will's own issues, and their burgeoning relationship borne of trust, respect, and sizzling sexual attraction. My heart cried out for Olivia. Her back story was mysterious and shocking. She was courageous and so tough. I hurt for everything she'd been through, and I adored how Will's mum welcomed her into her home and heart. I adored Will. He was plodding through life out of a sense of guilt and duty, yet he really stepped up for Olivia through her struggles. He didn't always deal with everything properly, as he fought to do the right thing, as he was her coach and she was a student. But, my goodness, when I thrilled at his jealousy and possession of her, and how he was willing to give up everything to be with the woman who made his life worth living. Loved this book hard!

Thank you for the opportunity to read Waking Olivia. Unfortunately, I did not finish reading the book before it was archived in May 2019. I do not plan to finish the book.

ARC
Another page turner. Book was well written with the characters explained. The ending was a bit blah and I skimmed over it quicker than the other pages. I did enjoy the overall story.

Waking Olivia is a romance between a very traumatized college track star and her young coach.

I didn’t expect to like this Waking Olivia as much as I did; I’m typically not a big fan of student/teacher romances. However, the relationship between Will and Olivia managed to miss a lot of the red flags that usually put me off. For one thing, there isn’t a significant age gap between the two characters, and for another, there is no build up of a real ‘mentor’ relationship—Will and Olivia basically go from hating each other’s guts to caring for each other within a couple of weeks.

Pro: the angsty chemistry between Olivia and Will is off the charts; their mutual longing will definitely have you holding your breath and waiting for the first touch, first kiss, first everything between them.

Con: fatphobia & disordered eating portrayed as healthy. Olivia routinely says awful, fatphobic things to other young women on the track team. Olivia is also portrayed as borderline anorexic and this is basically never addressed as a problem at all. At the same time, Olivia is purportedly going to college to become a nutritionist and the reader is supposed to believe that she wouldn’t be an extremely unsafe person in that capacity?

Overall, I did like this book a lot, but I probably wouldn’t recommend it to any young women who I knew were struggling with body image issues or eating disorders or who were at high risk of same.

Some plot points and the pacing were frustrating for me. I felt like it was average and it was similar to other romance books. It was too predictable which got boring and annoying.

While I liked some elements of this novel, I found myself frustrated by the pace and events of the plot. It fell back on too many romance novel clichés, failing to add anything that felt new or unique, and therefore I often grew board at it's predictability.

*5 Stars*

Copy kindly received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This has been on my backlog of books for ages, and I just hadn’t gotten around to reading it as yet. When I first picked it up a couple of days ago, I thought I was really going to dislike our main character Olivia, because of her arrogant and stand-offish attitude.

Little did I know that I was going to very quickly be swept up into this book. I got hooked on these characters and finding out what had happened to Olivia in her past, and I was furiously turning page after page.

Will is our hero, and he’s so adorable. He cares so much, but he also has his values and wants to do right by everyone and everything, even if it means hurting himself.

I really loved watching this story unfold, discovering Olivia’s horrible past, and seeing how she would deal with things, along with Will’s help.

We have some great secondary characters in this, and my fave’s would have to be Brendan, Dorothy and Erin. Their loyalty and the level with which they care about Olivia, no matter how she acts at times, is really great, and I really fell for this little circle of friends and family.

I was hanging on every word of this by the end, even if at times it did seem to be taking a while. I really loved this one, and look forward to reading more from this author.

I enjoy reading forbidden romances, and this was just that. The story of Olivia, the track star with a troubled past, and her coach, Will, who gave up on his dreams when his father passed away.
And it has a mystery entwined within the pages.
Who is Olivia really, what is her background? It starts as a mystery and it stays one for a long while. I liked how we got to unveil it piece by piece.

Waking Olivia is a poignant story about a troubled collegiate runner. Our story begins as Olivia Finnegan arrives at a new college, on scholarship, with the cross country team. Something that she is not at all happy about, considering she lost her last scholarship for beating up a fellow team member. Olivia’s new coach, Will Langstrom, is not at all thrilled with her arrival either. He agrees that she has potential, but doesn’t believe she will actually bring anything good to the team. Will finds her frustrating and annoying and believes she will not listen to anyone. When he discovers that Olivia is hiding something, against his better judgment, he decides to get involved.

I really enjoyed Waking Olivia, though it was not without its faults. I’ll start with our characters. I was pleasantly surprised to find how fleshed out our main characters are. I’m sure this is because I have low expectations for most new adult romances, but Elizabeth O’Roark did a wonderful job with her characters. Throughout the novel, we receive back story for both of our main characters, to better understand their positions and how that has affected each of their personalities. They each had their own personality, and it wasn’t hard to remember who’s POV we were in, as the novel switched between perspectives. Which is something that I sometimes have an issue with, in dual perspective novels. I found Olivia’s mannerisms and coping mechanisms fascinating, and even sometimes relatable. Even more so as we learn more about her and the things she has had to go through.

Will is a little more complicated. I understand his frustration with his situation, having to sacrifice things that he loved when he didn’t want to. However, I wasn’t particularly fond of the way he treated the women in his life, aside from his mother. I loved the fact that he wanted to help Oliva, and wanted to protect her. However, when it came to her relationships with other men, even his own brother, his jealousy was incredibly ridiculous. I understand that in this type of novel, it’s bound to happen. Romance novels seem to be fueled by jealousy. It’s not necessarily a healthy thing to romanticize and I think that if it had happened in smaller quantities, it would have much easier for me to swallow. On top of that, our main characters had terrible communication skills. Anytime there was an issue, they would ignore one another or worse, pretend the other didn’t exist. It was extremely immature.

I feel as if the novel was set up so we would understand and think of Olivia as having these major anger issues, which isn’t exactly untrue. She certainly needed help with anger management. However, I feel that Will’s anger issues were far worse than Olivia’s. All of that being said, I still really enjoyed both of our main characters. I found they were easy to sympathize with most of the time, and that’s what is important to me in a character. As far as side characters go, as much as I did not like Will’s girlfriend Jessica, I also do not agree with the way that he treated her. I didn’t appreciate that he basically used her as one tool to placate his original guilt about his father. All of that being said, I loved our side characters, especially Will’s family.

As for the plot, I enjoyed that it was about more than just romance. It was shocking and refreshing. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good romance novel as much as the next person. However, I always enjoy when it’s about both, life and love. On top of that, I adored how Roark explored love in its many forms in this novel. Not only the romantic love between Will and Olivia but, also the love between Will and his family. And eventually, the love between Olivia and the Langstroms. Especially after learning everything that Olivia has been through, she definitely deserved people who genuinely loved and cared for and supported her.

The story was far darker than I was expecting, and it was not at all a bad thing. In my opinion, Elizabeth Roark did a wonderful job of handling Olivia’s mental health and the progress with it. There was no sudden fix when what was going on was delved into. Roark gives you hints at Olivia’s past throughout the novel that kept me reading. Enough that I read this entire book in one day. While also working and spending time with my husband and friends throughout the day. I had my suspicions about Olivia’s past and where the story was going, and I ended up being right in most of those. However, it didn’t feel predictable at all.

Overall, I would recommend this book. It was a quick and engaging read. It was full of emotion, angst, heartbreak, but also hope and love. Keep in mind that the relationship and its participants, especially Will, should not be romanticized. It is extremely unhealthy for anyone, but especially your significant other, to control who you spend your time with. It is unhealthy for them to become furious when you so much as speak to someone of the opposite gender (or the same gender, if that fits the situation).

This is a character piece with a well-built relationship arc between Will and Olivia written in. I could tell the author spent a lot of time planning the narrative before she began writing. That's the mark of a truly great writer, in my opinion.

Racconta (a due voci) la storia di Olivia, una ragazza che corre nella squadra di atletica leggera del college ed è la più brava che abbiano avuto da anni, ma che soffre di un disturbo del sonno che oltre a tormentarla con incubi tremendi la fa correre da addormentata, come se scappasse da qualcosa. Il suo allenatore, Will, all'inizio la detesta e la prende un po' di mira, ma quando si accorge che la ragazza ha effettivamente dei problemi seri decide di aiutarla, prima mandandola dalla psicologa e poi mettendosi a dormire nella stanza di fianco a lei per bloccarla quando si mette a correre ed evitare che si faccia male. La ragazza ha chiaramente subito un grosso trauma (per ora si lascia intendere che il padre l'abbia accoltellata da piccola, e che un compagno di college abbia cercato di violentarla – ragione per cui lei lo ha picchiato con una mazza da baseball ed è stata espulsa dal college che frequentava prima). Will a sua volta è
arrabbiato con la vita perché voleva fare la guida alpina ma quando il padre è morto ha dovuto rinunciare a tutto per mandare avanti il ranch di famiglia, e siccome i soldi non bastavano si è messo anche a fare l'allenatore. Mi piace molto la dinamica tra i due, che da una forte antipatia reciproca sboccia in maniera molto graduale prima in una sorta di tacito rispetto e poi affetto e infine amore – proibito, ovviamente, perché lui oltre ad essere molto più adulto è anche l'allenatore. Niente è dato per scontato e non c'è quell'attrazione totale e francamente un po' inverosimile che si trova in altri romanzi, dove la storia sembra solo un pretesto per infilare una scena di sesso; anche Will non è il classico bad boy che inspiegabilmente all'improvviso sente di dover proteggere la poverina di turno. Olivia è combattiva, agguerrita, inflessibile. È un bello scontro tra titani, insomma, due caratteri forti che si attraggono perché trovano punti in comune. La lentezza nello sviluppo dell'amore tra i due però fa sì che questo aspetto passi un po' in secondo piano rispetto al percorso che ciascun personaggio fa dentro di sé. Devo dire però che nonostante la rabbia di entrambi, sono due personaggi per i quali ti viene da tifare, con i quali si crea una certa empatia.

Loved the show burning romance and Olivia as a character. Wasn't too keen on Will to begin with, but he grew on me.

This is a mixed bag for me.
The story of sleep running and the mystery and circumstances of why Olivia does it are fascinating. It's well written and touching.
It feels at times like mid chapter there is a scene change with no warning. I found that a bit confusing.
The dynamic between Will and Olivia is great, they hate each other at first as the banter is good.
Olivia is extremely dislikeable to other people and I loved her, you can see how vulnerable she is really and her childhood is unbelievably bad.
Will is insightful and patient.
The issue I had with Will is at the start and for a third of the book he has a girlfriend who he is having sex with, he doesn't really like her very much and there is a valid reason why he's ended up with her. But it takes him so long to break up with her. She's a real piece of work. He yet seems a bit of a wimp where she is concerned.
He likes Olivia and wants to be with her but it means he'd be fired but he's yet on/off with it too much for me, giving out mixed signals.
Well written though.

This is quite fresh for a romance fiction. The sleep running idea is great. Though the heroine is unlikable most times, everything about her is believable. There's clicle here and there, but this book is still a fun read. Love the ending too.

Such a great read, I really enjoyed it

4.25 Stars!!

ARC kindly provided by publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review,

How in the world do I write a review on this book without giving anything away. There's a lot to this story that unfolds perfectly. The main characters pull to each other is completely captivating, and I was draw in further with each page I turned. I really enjoyed this book. Olivia is a star runner for her college track team. She's had some trouble at her Division 1 school, and has been transferred to a much smaller school. Will is her new track coach. These two push and pull throughout the book, but have you cheering for them to get together the whole time. Fantastic story of the intriguing forbidden college student/teacher (coach) romance. Great book!!

This is a story that started as a hate to love storyline. Will and Olivia's story kept me intrigued from the first page to the very last. Phenomenal storyline and well developed characters.