Calm Like Home by Kaisa Clark
New Adult-Romance
July 15, 2015
Self Published
Reviewed by Helyce
From Goodreads: Alexa Clausen has never fallen. She’s never soared. She’s lived her entire life floating midway between passion and despondency, never experiencing those extremes. But all it takes is one evening with Adam Westbrook to draw her out of her shell, to leave her feeling bold for the first time ever. He is fiery and magnetic. He is gravitational, that inescapable pull no one can avoid. After a few chance encounters, Alexa finally accepts that she can’t stay away, can’t deny the electricity she feels every time he comes around.
But as the intensity between them deepens, she also can’t avoid the subtle hints that Adam is hiding something. His wide smile and radiant eyes obscure some burning secret, some detail of his past that resurfaces to steal his joy. The farther Alexa falls, the more she realizes just how little she really knows about Adam and how far he is willing to go to cover up the truth.
Calm Like Home is a story about love and longing, growth and stagnation, discovering one’s counterpart but losing oneself, and ultimately finding that one person truly has the power to change everything.
Calm Like Home didn’t turn out to be what I expected. The blurb attracted me because I expected dark, angsty, young adult love. The “secret” that is inferred is sad but it’s revealed too late in the book in my opinion and I was at the point where I’d had enough and just wanted to get to the end.
Alexa and Adam work at the same restaurant, but Adam only works during the summers as he goes to college 300 miles away. Alexa and her friend Annabelle are ecstatic when they learn that “the boys”, Adam and Damien, are home and will be working summer shifts soon. They always make work a little more tolerable with Damien’s crazy bets and dares.
As for Alexa, she’s has it bad for Adam for a while. He’s handsome, sexy and there is something about him that she’s drawn to. When they have shifts together, she flirts as does Adam and after a few group outings, Adam finally asks Alexa on a real date.
The high of a new romance is played out nicely as we get Alexa’s view of things. We know how she feels and what she’s worried about, and we see through her the highs and lows that Adam goes through in his actions and emotions. Alexa is curious, but decides not to say anything, content to just be with Adam and not take a chance of rocking the boat by asking him to reveal anything before he’s ready.
This choice causes a lot of repetitive back and forth which only gets worse when Adam returns to college and they leave their relationship undefined. Are they a couple? How does Adam really feel about Alexa? Neither voices their concerns prior to Adam leaving so we are then thrust into the “woe is me” Alexa. She misses Adam, understandably, but since he doesn’t text or call, she doesn’t. It basically came down to each of them waiting for the other to make a move.
Predictably, someone finally breaks down and takes a chance and expresses their feelings and happily learns the other feels the same day. Happy ending, right?
Nope.
By the time Alexa finally finds her spine and asks Adam to explain himself and his actions only to have Adam break up with her, rather than share anything personal about himself, I was done. Knowing I was near the end was the only reason I actually finished this book. Whiney, crying, “I wish I never said anything”, “it’s all my fault”, Alexa was not the kind of angst I wanted to experience. It started to take on a very high school-esque tone and I was not happy with some of Alexa’s choices at this point or how easily she is able to forgive Adam in the end.
I liked Adam and Alexa in the beginning. I liked how their romance played out and enjoyed them in their early days together. I especially liked that I could feel the fact that Alexa was a calming influence on Adam and that she centered him. I didn’t like that Alexa would not voice her questions and was content to swallow her feelings in order to keep the peace because she was afraid to upset Adam. And while some say love conquers all, I thought that Alexa forgave Adam too easily and it didn’t sit right with me.
Rating: C-
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