He's a walking cliche though, but he's aware of that. He's not a bad guy turned good, he's not a jerk. ALSO, she's a huge Harry Potter fan, and the book was loaded with Harry Potter references!!! I was LIVING.Īmber's relationship with Kyle is absolutely adorable! Kyle is a great male MC, and I'm glad because he's GOOD. Her internal struggle of what she should do/say and what she actually wanted to do/say and what she actually did/said. You could see the effects Amber's mum's abandonment on Amber. They make mistakes, they feel jealousy, they make bad decisions, they're not 100% good or 100% evil. However, that's what I like about Holly's characters: they're flawed. I was sometimes able to connect and relate to their thoughts and sometimes I couldn't. She's 17 years old but at times I felt she acted like a 14 or 15 year old. Amber was fairly good MC, yet she felt younger than she really is. I actually really liked the book, although at times it really dragged (it's almost 500 pages - for a contemporary, that's too much for me!!). Because that means you've not done anything you cared about.” Also, just like in Am I Normal Yet?, the book discussed feminism, but in my opinion, it was more discussed in Am I Normal Yet? and I honestly love Holly Bourne's take on feminism.

It dealt with pretty deep subjects: alcoholism and abandonment. This is Amber's book, and when I read Am I Normal Yet?, I was wondering what her story would be about because we were barely given any clue about Amber's life, except how shaky her family is, so I was curious to delve deeper into that and that's exactly what I got.

Like book 1 (Am I Normal Yet?), How Hard Can Love Be? had the good balance between cute and serious. I think it worked? However, the book was just what I needed at the time. I've been in a slump since last week basically, and I decided to start my only owned contemporary book as an attempt to get out of this slump.

How Hard Can Love Be? by Holly Bourne