Synopsis from the Publisher:
Asher Davis. My first crush.My first kiss.
The boy who ripped my heart out of my chest again and again. Over and over. I let him have it every single time.
Willingly.
We are that toxic high school couple you hear about, the one you witness in the hallway avoiding each other. You laugh at them in class when they’re forced to work together, their gazes full of hatred. We are the couple you gossip about when they win homecoming prince and princess their sophomore year…
The back and forth is what kills me the most. I’m not his princess, I’m the girl he toys with when he’s bored. And he’s definitely not my prince, no matter how badly I want him to be.
Our senior year and we’re months away from never having to see each other again when disaster strikes—and brings us closer together. All it takes is one touch, and I’m burning for Ash. Hotter than I ever have.
But will that burn turn into a devastating fire? Or can we actually make it work this time?
Review:
Close To Me details the relationship between Autumn Callahan and Asher Davis, spanning all four years that they’re in high school together. Autumn is the daughter of NFL great Drew Callahan, whose own love story was chronicled in the One Week Girlfriend series (which I have not read, so no, you do not have to have the previous stories to follow Close To Me.
Autumn is a “good girl”, who never breaks the rules, tries hard not to disappoint her parents, and dates the right kind of guy. But she keeps finding herself inexplicably drawn to the *wrong* guy, Asher “Ash” Davis, who, while he has a bright future in football, comes from a broken home and continually makes the wrong choices. There is definitely an attraction between them, but they’re also very wrong for each other… or so they think. They spend a lot of their time bickering, pushing each other away for one reason or another.
As an adult, I found quite a few moments between Ash and Autumn to be somewhat problematic, so I had to remind myself that they’re both teenagers, and teenagers aren’t always the most mature bunch. There is plenty of angst, which I love, sexy times and optimism. Better yet, there is also enough character development to keep me invested. Honestly, I kept waiting for some catastrophic moment between the two that would thrust us into the future to find Autumn and Asher apart as adults, but this remained strictly a contemporary YA novel, which I was not expecting. That’s not a bad thing, but I hope Murphy revisits Ash and Autumn down the line, when they’re both older.
I have read a handful of Murphy’s novels now and have always enjoyed them. I read CTM in one day, if that tells you anything. She’s a talented writer, so I’m looking forward to reading more of the Callahan series as they come. If I knock this story for anything, it’s the unstable psycho ex-girlfriend subplot that felt a little out of place and rather generic. Other than that, I found myself really enjoying Autumn and Asher’s story.
Definitely recommend to Murphy fans and anyone who likes a bit of an edge to their YA romances.
Rating: 4/5
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