Review: Chasing Spring by R.S. Grey - Vilma Iris | Lifestyle Blogger

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Review: Chasing Spring by R.S. Grey

My Thoughts

A deeply moving tale of love and loss, hope and resilience.

4stars

Synopsis

Feb-01I thought I’d left Blackwater, Texas behind for good. I didn’t belong in the small town, but my dad wouldn’t listen. He dragged me back home in his beat-up truck and dropped a bomb along the way: Chase Matthews was moving in with us. He was the golden boy of my high school, my former best friend, and the last person I wanted sleeping across the hall. His presence was too great a reminder of the ghosts I was trying to forget.

I didn’t ask for a hero. I don’t want to be saved.

To me, Lilah Calloway meant late nights sneakin’ out, moonlit hair, and sparklers in July. She was my best friend until the day she left and I’d assumed Blackwater had seen the last of her. Then, like a tempest, she rolled back into town for the final half of senior year. The chopped hair and dark devil-may-care attitude warned most people away, but I knew if I fought hard enough, I could find the lost girl.

I didn’t want to be her hero. Some girls don’t need to be saved.

My Review

“This was our story and happy endings are few and far between.”

With her latest, Author R.S. Grey indelibly proves that not only can her words make us lose it in a fit of giggles, but they can also make us feel as tears threaten to fall. Chasing Spring was an evocative coming-of-age tale of two high schoolers who have gone through more than most should at their age. Theirs is the kind of story that makes your heart ache as all its layers unravel, revealing the rawness of a reticent, but resounding pain. Grey delivers the story in multiple point of views, as we experience the push and pull between our two protagonists. It’s a duel between their past and present, between fighting their pain and relenting to their sorrow.

“My family’s secrets had been plucked, pressed, preserved and put on display”

The last thing Lilah Calloway wants is to go back to Blackwater, Texas. That small town represented everything she wanted to bury, everything she struggled to deal with.  Unfortunately, circumstances made leaving Austin a necessity and she reluctantly goes back home knowing she’d have to face it all again. Making matters worse, her ex best friend, Chase Matthews, was to be moving in with her and her dad.

“He was the golden boy, and I was the lost girl.”

Chase Matthews was Blackwater’s golden boy—good looking, kind, loyal, the town’s talented baseball player. Lilah and Chase had grown up together, their mothers were best friends. But now, Lilah was coming back to town towing a tough attitude, her blond hair dyed black. She planned to ignore Chase and just survive her last year of high school.

As expected, coming home stirred up emotions she didn’t—couldn’t—deal with as ghosts haunted her every waking minute. Loss and addiction had shaped her life, horrible choices scarred her in ways that would never diminish. She feared her own turbulent feelings would make her lose control, following dangerous footsteps she feared to tread.

“What if I’m past the point of return?”

There is so much to Chase and Lilah’s story. As the story reveals what happened, I felt crushed by the gravity of what these two people had gone through. But as somber and serious as the topics explored are, this is also a story of hope, resilience and fighting to grasp onto the love we have in our lives.

Chasing Spring is a quickly read, emotional coming-of-age that both young and adult readers will enjoy.

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