Step Into Fiction: Blog Tour: As Long As You Love Me by @MsAnnAguirre

As Long As You Love Me by Ann Aguirre
(2B Trilogy, #2)
Release Date: September 30, 2014
Publisher: Harlequin HQN; 352 pages
Rating:

Most people dream about getting out of Sharon, Nebraska, but after three years away, Lauren Barrett is coming home. There are the justifications she gives to everyone else—missing her family, losing her college scholarship. And then there’s the reason Lauren can’t admit to anyone: Rob Conrad, her best friend’s older brother.

Football prowess and jaw-dropping good looks made Rob a star in high school. Out in the real world, his job and his relationships are going nowhere. He can’t pinpoint exactly what’s missing until Lauren comes back to town, bringing old feelings and new dreams with her. But he’s the guy that women love and leave—not the one who makes them think of forever.

Though she’s terrified of opening up, Lauren’s ready to take that chance. Because the only thing more important than figuring out where you truly belong is finding the person you were meant to be with.

I was excited to read this book because I knew, I just KNEW there was so much more to Rob than what everyone else saw. He was portrayed as your typical good looking jock who lacked brain cells, ya know how it is but us smart girls knew this wasn't true. I mean, the good looking part was seriously true and the fact he was really good at sports. Just because you don't know a lot of big words certainly doesn't make you stupid, if that were the case, I'd be in that category, as well. Vocabulary (along with grammar) was always my weakness in school. I just couldn't do it.

I was a little hesitant about reading from Lauren's point of view, though. Not that I didn't like her but she was probably my least favorite of all the roommates and after finishing it, I think that still stands. I like her but she got on my nerves quite a bit. However, putting that aside, she was very relate-able, for me. She has a lot of social anxiety issues, and I have them, too, just not as extreme. I'm very sociably awkward the first few times you might be around me. Ask anyone I'm friends with. However, once I'm comfortable around you, I become a completely different person. Once I trust you enough to open up, the fear goes away. I've never had a full blown anxiety attack before because of social situations, so, like I said, not as extreme. The fact that I can relate to her so well, on this level, made me want to love her.

She's a good person and she has a great heart but I just don't know. There was something about her that just didn't mesh well with me but the sad thing is, I can't put my finger on exactly what that is. I love how great of a person she is and how she reached out to the most unsuspecting people. Her heart is in the right place and she now feels a lot more comfortable being back home and away from a school where she just didn't feel like she belonged.

I loved loved LOVED the whole flipping the house concept of this book. I watch a lot of HGTV and I'm obsessed with things like that so it made me giddy reading about their adventures in remodeling the house Rob bought. This was most definitely my favorite aspect of this book. I sat here just envisioning everything. I would totally watch Rob build.

I enjoyed how this story overlapped with Nadia's story in I Want It That Way. It made rethink to what happened at this time with her and where she was with Mr. Hot Ginger. While I'm happy that Rob and Lauren are striving toward their happily ever after, I was really hoping for a Lauren / Max relationship from the first book. I know, I should've read the descriptions of the books and I would've never had that dream but there you have it, I did.

The growth you see in not just Lauren but also Rob is astonishing. You look at them in the beginning of the book and them at the end of the book and sometimes, they don't even appear to be the same person. All their growth was in the right direction and overall, I am very, very happy with this book.

Now, give me The Shape of Your Heart because I NEED Max, pronto.

Thank you so much to InkSlinger PR for allowing me to be a part of this tour, again. I truly appreciate all you do! Thank you to Harlequin for the opportunity to read and review this book, honestly. Also, a big thank you to Ann Aguirre (and her assistant) for sending me a physical copy to read and review, honestly. <3

About Ann Aguirre:

Ann Aguirre is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling author and RITA winner with a degree in English Literature; before she began writing full time, she was a clown, a clerk, a voice actress, and a savior of stray kittens, not necessarily in that order. She grew up in a yellow house across from a cornfield, but now she lives in sunny Mexico with her husband, children, and various pets. Ann likes books, emo music, action movies, and she writes all kinds of genre fiction for adults and teens, published with Harlequin, Macmillan, and Penguin, among others.

Links:

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