Single Sundays: Addicted to Him by Lauren Dodd

Single Sundays: While this blog may be focused on reviewing book series as a whole, we can’t forget about the good ole’ standalone novel! On Sundays, I will review a novel that is considered to be a standalone novel. Here is this week’s offering:

Synopsis for Addicted to Him (from Goodreads):
I never knew you could get addicted to people….until I met Seth.

I just wanted to escape. I had a huge secret and I was trying to run away from it as fast as I could. I managed to get myself shipped a thousand miles away for the summer to my estranged father and perky new stepmother’s house. Nobody knew me there and that’s the way I liked it. I didn’t have to be the screwed-up girl with the terrible secret anymore; I could be anybody I wanted to be.

Being sequestered at Dad’s house turned out to be amazing. I started wondering if somehow I could convince him to keep me forever and then I might have a shot at a normal life for a change. Enter hot, mysterious, moody Seth and my desire to become a permanent resident of Colorado just quadrupled.

I had never met anyone like Seth. I trusted him more than I had ever trusted anyone. I craved his lips, his body, and his touch. It didn’t take long for me to become totally addicted to him. The way he could get my body to respond was incredible. Before long I was spilling every dark secret I had to him never dreaming that he would someday use that knowledge against me.

I should have known my fairy tale wouldn’t last forever. Secrets that I prayed would never see the light of day were soon exposed, changing my life forever. I couldn’t run anymore. I had to decide if I wanted to stay the same girl who never fights for herself, or try to find the strength inside myself to live the life I knew I had always deserved.

Review:

I got this book as a freebie from Amazon this past summer. I actually read it right away because I really love New Adult stories that have heroines with secretive pasts and this seemed right up that alley. And while it did meet this expectation, it also surprised me as well.

This book has everything that I feel define New Adult reads. It has a cute romance with flawed characters that somehow find and complete each other. Add a dash of heat and the bad boy hero and there you have it in one neat package.

Except that this book went down a path I think this genre often neglects: which is when the relationship passes the border of unhealthy and how the characters deal with it. As much as I love the New Adult genre (and I’ve said this before) I sometimes worry about readers getting the impression that these dramatic relationships are the everyday norm and it is completely healthy–because it really isn’t. Which is why I liked this book because it actually tackled the issue about what a healthy relationship is and I really appreciated that it went in that direction. Not a lot of books do or would in this genre so I thought it was very refreshing that it did this in a realistic way.

As for the characters I liked them enough. I found Cassidy to be a little confusing at times and this would annoy me–especially at the start–but I felt like she really matured over the course of the book. Besides the insta-love, I also liked Seth and the rest of the characters. I really like how this book ended and I think it wrapped the plots of the book really well.

Conclusion:

While it is not the strongest or greatest book I have ever read, I found Addicted to Him to be very refreshing. It’s not for everyone as it deals with some more mature situations and not everyone will like the insta-love connection BUT there is more to this book than just a love-connection and that is what I want to highlight with this review.

Rating: 4/5

Shorthand Stats:
Genre:New Adult, Romance, Drama
Recommended for: 17+
Similar Reads:

• Find You in the Dark by A Meredith Walters (Find you in the Dark #1)
• Be Here Now by Andrea Wolfe