C. A. Williams

This book had me going back and forth in liking and not so sure if I liked. In the end, I liked the book. I loved Della’s character. Although she had led a privileged life, she was able to see what life was really about when everything was taken from her. Her character was open to learning life lessons and self-discovery. You don’t typically come across characters quite like her, similar but different.
I loved Justin. Who doesn’t? It’s the typical cliché, but yet you don’t ever want to truly hate him like some bad boys. Bad boys should have a love-hate relationship with the reader, but not Justin. That just wouldn’t fit with the storyline.
Nash, I didn’t like him at all from day one. He is a douchebag. He is the undercover bad boy. He is manipulative and selfish. Although he served a purpose in this story, I could have done without him completely!!
This book is well written and will be hard to put down, for the most part. I will admit there were parts that were lagging for me. But I would think that is true for a lot of books. It’s a unique story and is mapped out well. The connections and reconnections the characters make are realistic. Now, the only thing I was disappointed with in the book is the emotions. I find myself saying this a lot lately… I wanted to feel more of an emotional rollercoaster with this book. It wasn’t there for me. I liked the ride, but it wasn’t the ride I would think of considering the story.
I would recommend this book for anyone looking for a serious but light read. It isn’t hard to read, and it won’t take you long to get through it.… (més)

This book had me going back and forth in liking and not so sure if I liked. In the end, I liked the book. I loved Della’s character. Although she had led a privileged life, she was able to see what life was really about when everything was taken from her. Her character was open to learning life lessons and self-discovery. You don’t typically come across characters quite like her, similar but different.
I loved Justin. Who doesn’t? It’s the typical cliché, but yet you don’t ever want to truly hate him like some bad boys. Bad boys should have a love-hate relationship with the reader, but not Justin. That just wouldn’t fit with the storyline.
Nash, I didn’t like him at all from day one. He is a douchebag. He is the undercover bad boy. He is manipulative and selfish. Although he served a purpose in this story, I could have done without him completely!!
This book is well written and will be hard to put down, for the most part. I will admit there were parts that were lagging for me. But I would think that is true for a lot of books. It’s a unique story and is mapped out well. The connections and reconnections the characters make are realistic. Now, the only thing I was disappointed with in the book is the emotions. I find myself saying this a lot lately… I wanted to feel more of an emotional rollercoaster with this book. It wasn’t there for me. I liked the ride, but it wasn’t the ride I would think of considering the story.
I would recommend this book for anyone looking for a serious but light read. It isn’t hard to read, and it won’t take you long to get through it.… (més)

3.5 hearts

Chaotic is about a young girl from a pretty well to do family, wanting to keep up appearances, and keep family secrets just that. Della makes some wrong decisions and gets herself to in some trouble, giving an emotional read.

Della is seriously on the wrong path. At first I was just so irritated with her character. She seemed to come from a fairly decent family, she was part of a reality tv show a couple years ago, but she snippy and snotty. I soon learned just why she was the way she was and I began to understand and like more and ended up liking her. There were a few secondary characters that were great, they were her roommates. They accepted her just for her. And her grandparents were just amazing, and just what she needed. Can’t say that about her parents, either of them.

The story revolves Della, who has a past that her mother would love to keep secret, but that isn’t an easy thing when Della was part of the tv program person that quite a few people watched, and with social media, people would always be able to find out who she is. We do learn what happened to her and my heart went out to her, especially when you someone as a mother like she did. Now, Della does find some romance and there a fair share of steamy scenes. But there is also a love triangle, the longtime best friend, Nash, who is sweet and genuinely a good guy. And then the tattooed, pierced guy, Justin, who at first glance is the bad boy, the ones that girls fall for. But things aren’t always what they seem, and I wasn’t sure who I wanted her to end up with until the end. I don’t know if it was because I have read so many books with love triangles in them, or that I am just getting burned out or what. But this one okay, and it worked as something that Della had to work through and learn from. Della makes some mistakes, but learns some important life lessons. I enjoyed watching her grow up as much as she did throughout this. The ending wasn’t what I hoping for, but the epilogue made up for it, giving me some hope at a happy ending for Della.

Chaotic was a pretty good book, dealing with issues that girls face today. I am curious to see how everything turns out for Della, and look forward to reading the next book in the series.… (més)

I would give five stars to the story. It was new and kind of different than anything I've read lately. There was "the big misunderstanding" that I hate so much but it actually fit the story for once and I loved the way the author dealt with it. The story was a bit slow at times, and it didn't really have a high peak, that moment you wait for the whole time you read a book, but I didn't mind. It was a sweet story, told in a sweet way, with a bit of a cliffhanger in the end (that I thought wasn't really necessary, but anyways).

I loved Leah and the way she handled everything life threw her way. She is strong and capable. Her love and care for Caleb was touching, and she was suitably mature for her age considering everything. I related to her on a personal level, too, which is why I liked her so much and found her a believable character.

And Chase is wonderful, perfect in every way but it's not unrealistic. Don't be fooled by the blurb, because Chase is not a bad boy. He is actually a really good guy, and during the whole book he did everything perfect. His family is loving and wonderful and it's no wonder he was such a nice guy.
(Is there a prejudice that because someone has tattoos and piercings, they're automatically a bad boy/bad girl? This is so wrong.)

The romance is sweet, and there was obvious chemistry between Chase and Leah.

Actually, as I write this, I'm even contemplating giving it five stars, but I just can't justify that. The book is not just about the story, is it?

The writing is awful. It's full of grammar and spelling mistakes that I'm pretty sure nobody went over twice (or even once) to fix. There's a considerable lack of proper punctuation.
I'm downright offended that the author let someone pay $4.99 (Kindle price for me) to read something like this. I'm trying not to be harsh, but I just can't help myself, it really was that awful. It was full of the usual they're/their/there and it's/its and your/you're mistakes, a lot of who's/whose and it also had one of my biggest pet peeves - the would of/should of. This is just wrong.

It doesn't just happen once, it goes on and on throughout the book and after maybe the tenth time I realized that they're not so much of typos or slip-ups, but that the author actually cannot use them properly. There are also these never ending sentences and improper use of tenses, and a bunch of repetitive sentences that sort of just up the word count without really telling you anything new.

Here's an example
...you'll see when we get there, we probably have about two hours in the car before we get there. We'll get there... (Chapter 16)

See what I mean?

I know the temptation of self-publishing, of just putting something together and putting it out there, but I expect to be treated with respect as a reader and I didn't see it here. It could have used a lot more work, and an impossible amount of editing.

So, with five stars for the story, and a one measly star for writing, it goes down to three stars and I think I'm being generous. The author does have talent for storytelling and I hope she keeps writing, but I'm also hoping that next time she will pay much more attention to these things. I'm also looking forward to see what happens next in their story.… (més)