The Coincidence Of Callie And Kayden Jessica Sorensen Book Review

Hurray! For once taking a gamble on a 99 cent Kindle chart topping ebook has worked out positively for me. I actually really enjoyed The Coincidence Of Callie And Kayden by Jessica Sorensen in that guilty pleasure oh my godddd these crazy college kids are going to hook up and it’s going to be awesome sort of way. Like, The Coincidence Of Callie And Kayden isn’t perfect, but it’s miles above Taking Chances, plus I found the plot and the characters incredibly compelling.

The Coincidence Of Callie & Kayden by Jessica Sorensen starts out with a prologue. Basically, Callie’s mom is making her grab her brother from a party which happens to be at Kayden’s house. Only Callie hates parties, she’s extremely shy and kind of weird, so she’s dreading getting her brother. While looking for her brother, she comes across a scene where she witnesses Kayden getting the life beaten out of him by his father. Callie intervenes — which is not something most people do. Anyways, the two connect briefly. THEN we flash forward like a month and the two characters just so happen to be at the same college in Laramie. Kayden doesn’t even recognize Callie, but he feels attracted to her. And obviously you guys, the story gets into how the two get together. You see, Callie has endured the worst trauma ever, and I’m not even using hyperbole. We don’t find out what it is until partway through, but if you have half a brain you can guess. And well, we both know that Kayden’s dad is physically abusive. So really, what the whole plot of The Coincidence Of Callie And Kayden is about is Callie and Kayden lowering their barriers and learning to trust other people and move beyond their pasts.

I actually didn’t find myself annoyed with Callie while reading The Coincidence Of Callie & Kayden. I loved that as a character, her life was far from perfect nor did everything just happen to fall into her lap. The way she dealt with her trauma felt realistic to me, especially because it was something that happened when she was 12 and children and the survivors of childhood trauma react in a variety of ways. I thought Sorensen did a wonderful job of showing how bad things can happen to us, but we can slowly find the strength to move on. Callie seemed to represent hope once she got to college, because damn if the girl doesn’t start making an effort to change her life and to actually be happy. Of course, her gay BFF Seth has something to do with it. But you guys, Seth is awesome and he’s more than the stereotypical sassy gay with great fashion sense. Seth has his own past as well and we get glimpses of what’s happened to him. Back to my Callie ramble, I just found her bravery — the real life sort of bravery — very compelling.

YOU GUYS! Kayden ALSO narrates. Yay, dual narration. Anyways, I kind of assumed that I would find Kayden to be a big douchebag and then end up changing my mind about him. However, I took to his character almost immediately. Like, males experience trauma too and sometimes I feel like I don’t read a whole lot of books where a guy is the victim of familial physical abuse. Speaking of which, I still need to read Split. Anyways, Kayden is at college on a football scholarship and now that he’s out of his dad’s clutches he feels like he can finally breathe. After Callie saves him at the party, and she ends up at the same college as him, Kayden feels that he owes her everything. Yet, his attraction to her develops out of something more. Callie’s a nice person and genuine, unlike his high school girlfriend Daisy, and so he finds himself wanting to sex her more and more. YES THAT IS RIGHT HE IS WRITTEN LIKE AN ACTUAL GUY IN THAT WE GET HIS SEX THOUGHTS. You guys, I’ve lived with my boyfriend for the past 5 years and I can tell you, that’s actually really realistic. AND I LOVED The Coincidence Of Callie & Kayden by Jessica Sorensen for that.

Probably the one drawback to The Coincidence Of Callie & Kayden was the writing style. I mean, I liked the book in that it wasn’t convoluted nor did it have utterly ridiculous plot twists. The writing is very straight forward and matter of fact. It wasn’t anything where I was like wow, I need to stitch this onto a pillow. Also, the dialogue came across as clunky from time to time. Plus, certain motifs got repetitive — namely the whole Callie almost telling us her secret and what happened then pulling back several times. Also, the whole ‘you’re the bravest person I know’ between her and Seth. That stated, the book was a lot better than I had expected it to be and for the most part I was satisfied.

Of course, judging by the cover I bet most of you came to this review wondering just how swoonworthy and just how romantic IS The Coincidence Of Callie & Kayden. Well, on a scale of one to ten, I’d probably give this book a 7. I mean, there ARE sexytimes (HECK YES!). And there isn’t exactly instalove. However, it seemed kind of like there was instatrust, and that’s likely because I didn’t feel the passage of time marked, although the book does start pre-college and end on Thanksgiving break, so I suppose within the time frame August-November, it makes sense. ANYWAYS! There are kissing scenes and honesty and discussion, not a lot of banter but sort of a slowish build and it’s very SIGH-inducing. I mean that in a good way, not sigh these silly stupid characters, but sigh, awww. That way. OH OH and there are a few steamy bits. Prudes need not apply.

OH OH and I kind of forgot to mention in my drawbacks paragraph, but The Coincidence Of Callie And Kayden totally ends on a cliffhanger, but I heard a rumor that book 2, The Redemption Of Callie and Kayden is coming out in February 2013, so it’s not like a year long wait. For the most part, I really enjoyed this book and just whipped through it and could not put it down. As one of my favorite blogs, Rather Be Reading tends to say — the price is right and at 99 cents you really can’t go wrong with The Coincidence of Callie And Kayden by Jessica Sorensen.

Disclosure: Purchased my copy out of curiosity.

Other reviews of The Coincidence Of Callie And Kayden by Jessica Sorensen:

YA Bound – “I wasn’t expecting how much I was going to end up loving this book or how it would emotionally affect me.”

Waves Of Fiction – “I read one page and that’s all it took to have me hooked.”

Talk Supe – “compelling and emotional page turner that had me totally engrossed right from the prologue”

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April (Books&Wine)

April is in her 30s and created Good Books And Good Wine. She works for a non-profit. April always has a book on hand. In her free time she can be found binge watching The Office with her husband and toddler, spending way too much time on Pinterest or exploring her neighborhood.

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