Book Review: The Edge of You by Theresa DaLayne

He left home to escape. She made a new life out of guilt. Neither one expected to find love—but not even the Arctic can cool this steamy romance.

Maya knows she’s doing the right thing by moving to Alaska with her parents, but that doesn’t mean she has to be happy about it. Forced to give up a scholarship to a prestigious art school, she relocates to a Podunk town with one college the size of her high school cafeteria, all to help hold her family together after the death of her little sister. But a fresh start can only do so much.

Jake doesn’t like handouts and he certainly doesn’t need any distractions. Working on a salmon boat in Kodiak, Alaska is the only way to pay for his mother’s surgery back in the lower forty-eight. Juggling college courses and constant worry about his mother’s health, Jake couldn’t imagine anything else fitting into his life. That is, until he meets Maya, the sexy Californian artist who tints his world in technicolor.

But when Maya’s family starts to crumble and Jake’s mom takes a turn for the worse, will they drag each other down, or can they find what they were missing all along?

A free ARC was provided to me through Netgalley.

The first thing most people really notice about The Edge of You is that it does have a really unique setting.  Alaska is a far from common setting; this is probably the first book I’ve encountered that used it where it wasn’t some kind of wilderness survival plot.  And the setting is used well, with details dropped about it without seeming overbearing or too casual.  There are certain times when a special setting really does need more details than usual, and I’d say this is it.  Kodiak is pretty unique, and the fact that Maya is an artist worked really well, I think, because she’s the type of person that would have an eye for the type of beauty the island exhibits.

Overall, though, I’d say that the book was average.  The plot wasn’t anything special; a typical ‘broken people find love’ plot set against an interesting backdrop, and I found myself annoyed with the characters sometimes.  Most often Jake’s mother in the beginning.  I have a lot of sympathy for someone in positions similar to hers, but I just saw no reason at all why she’d stay with her boyfriend.  If he had spent even a little time taking care of her or earning money so she felt like she was dependent on him maybe, but he sucked her dry and didn’t give a darn about her, so I honestly had no sympathy that she didn’t just kick him to the curb earlier than she did.  Not to mention Maya’s mother was a pretty horrible person and her father handled things incredibly badly for… no apparent reason.  It even says in text near the end when he doesn’t contact her after she starts staying with Jake that he had no reason to stay silent.  He could’ve at least called and made sure she was okay.  He didn’t have to let her in on the Big Reveal.

I also found that the writing got really simple near the end, like the author just wanted to get it over with or something, which made those last few chapters a bit of a slog for me.

So again, I’d say this book was average.  I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as I was hoping I would.