Review: Chasing Spring by RS Grey

Chasing Spring by RS Grey
Series: Standalone
Published: February 1st, 2016
Publisher: Self-published
304 pages (eARC)
Genre: Contemporary Young Adult
Acquired this book: From the author in exchange for honest consideration
Warning: May contain spoilers
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I 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.

RS Grey has been on my radar for awhile now, and while I’ve owned a copy of With This Heart for several months, Chasing Spring was actually the first book of hers I’ve read. Between the beautiful cover and the synopsis, I was intrigued, and I’m glad I’ve finally read one of her books. It won’t be my last!

I liked the way the story was told alternately between Lilah and Chase, and then going back in time, first to when Lilah’s mom was a little girl, and then years later when she was a troubled addict who abandoned her family and made a mess of her life. It was a unique way to give back story and also give insight into Lilah and Chase as they are today at seventeen.

I’m not sure what it was, but there was something that prevented me from truly connecting to this story or its characters. As I was reading, I kept thinking ‘I should be feeling more here - my heart should be breaking, I should be tearing up’, etc., but I never really went past surface emotion while reading. I liked Lilah and Chase, but didn’t connect to them, and found it hard to root for them. There was a part of my heart/brain that knew they should be together - they had shared history, they knew each other well, they’d been through a lot together - but I don’t think there was enough of them together on-page for me to fall for them as a couple. They were barely friends when Lilah came back, then they were, then they couldn’t be together, but then they were anyway, and through it all, we rarely actually saw them together.

Chasing Spring is a story about family, friendship, redemption, and overcoming your demons. While it fell a bit flat for me, I seem to be in the minority, so as always I recommend checking it out for yourself if it seems like something you’d like. I enjoyed Grey’s writing, and will be reading more of her books soon.

Have you read Chasing Spring? What did you think? If you haven't read it, do you plan to? Have you read any of RS's other books?

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