Just Friends by Monica Murphy Series: Friends #1
Published by Self-Published on September 13th 2016
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Young Adult
Format: eARC
Source: ARC
Purchase @ AMAZON or BN
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It’s the end of summer. Just before I start senior year with my two best friends in the whole world. Dustin and Emily are everything to me. We’ve been inseparable since middle school, and when we’re together, nothing can go wrong.
But things aren’t always what they seem. Em’s turned into a drunken mess who parties too much. Dustin and I have hooked up a few times―and now he’s ready to take our relationship to the next level. Yet I’m not sure I want things to change. I’m scared if I take it any further with Dustin, our friendship will be ruined forever. Then there’s Ryan. The new guy. He’s hot. He flirts way too much. And Em has totally set her sights on him.
So when my best friend betrays me in the worst possible way, guess who’s there to help me pick up the pieces of my broken heart? Ryan. But he’s so confusing. Annoying. Sweet. Sexy. I want to trust him, yet he makes it so hard. What I really want is for everything to go back to the way it was before.
Before I found out that best friends make the worst kind of enemies.
Angie’s Thoughts:
5 Drama Filled Stars!
There’s nothing like a great YA book that takes you back to the good ol’ days of being a teenager.
Drama- check
Backstabbing-check
Teenage love-check
Creepiness-Check
A Clueless teenager-check
Suspense-check
Lies-check
Jealousy-check
Secrets-check
All the makings of a great YA book and Monica delivers it flawlessly.
We have three best friends who over a course of a summer changed. Everyone can’t remain the same. Some change for the better while others change for the worse. But can their friendship withhold the changes?
“Life never happens like you believe it will. You think you have it all together, that you’ll never deviate from your plan, but it’ll happen. Forces beyond your control will come along and bam, everything changes,” he says with a little shrug. “Sometimes it’ll be a good change, sometimes it’s a bad one. You just gotta roll with the punches.”
I haven’t read the prequel to Just Friends to see how Olivia, Em and Dustin’s friendship was before and I really wished I did. I wish I had more insight into their friendship more.
We start out with Olivia staying at her dad’s house in Oregon and she can’t wait to go home. Her friends have been almost silent all summer doing what teenagers do and that’s partying.
Dustin has been her best friend since she was 7. He picked her. She picked Em and it’s always been the three of them until it wasn’t.
The dynamic between the three of them is tense, to say the least. It’s so thick you can cut it like a knife.
The character development is so strong that you can close your eyes and actually see yourself as Livvy or Em. You get so caught up in Just Friends that you forget that you’re a 38 yr old mother and wife.
Monica Murphy creates this vivid world that you can escape to and be a teenager. You go back to being 17 again. When the only problems you had was your parents nagging you about grades, graduating school and boys.
I can’t wait for the sequel! That ending just leaves you wanting for more!
The Verdict:
Purchase Now!
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2bHAn2k
iBooks: http://apple.co/2aeSduM
B&N: http://bit.ly/2bIDYNr
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2bNGXUX
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2bIEISO
Amazon CA: http://amzn.to/2bhsEbM
Amazon AU: http://amzn.to/2byYFg7
About Monica Murphy
Monica Murphy is the New York Times, USA Today and #1 international bestselling author of the One Week Girlfriend series, the Billionaire Bachelors and The Rules series. Her books have been translated in almost a dozen languages and has sold over one million copies worldwide. She is both self-published and published by Random House/Bantam and Harper Collins/Avon. She writes new adult, young adult and contemporary romance.
She is a wife and a mother of three who lives in central California on fourteen acres in the middle of nowhere along with their one dog and too many cats. A self-confessed workaholic, when she’s not writing, she’s reading or hanging out with her husband and kids. She’s a firm believer in happy endings, though she will admit to putting her characters through angst-filled moments before they finally get that hard won HEA.
