Taking Chances by Molly McAdams

Taking Chances by Molly McAdams
Series: Taking Chances, #1
Source: Bought on Amazon
Publisher: Harper Collins
Publication Date: October 16, 2013

Her first year away is turning out to be nearly perfect, but one weekend of giving in to heated passion will change everything.

Eighteen-year-old Harper has grown up under the thumb of her career marine father. Ready to live life her own way and to experience things she's only ever heard of from the jarheads in her father's unit, she's on her way to college at San Diego State University.

Thanks to her new roommate, Harper is introduced to a world of parties, gorgeous guys, family, and emotions. She finds herself being torn in two as she quickly falls in love with both her new boyfriend, Brandon, and her roommate's brother, Chase. Despite their dangerous looks and histories, both men adore Harper and would do anything for her, including taking a step back if it would mean she'd be happy.

My face was stretched in a wide grin as I looked around my bedroom one last time.

Taking Chances was quite a bit different than I assumed it would be. I knew that there would be cheating to some extent, and while I'm not a big fan of cheating, I wanted to see if the author could make me like the characters anyway.

I did like Harper and her friend Bree, but it took me a little bit to warm up to the guy characters. Harper and Bree were pretty good, though. I loved Bree's brash nature, and I liked that Harper was so unexposed to the world. Harper could be a little selfish at times, and Lord knows that she was impetuous, but I liked her. My only issue is that Harper let Bree start changing her as soon as they met. I mean, it's not a huge deal, but she changed pretty quickly. Another thing was that she falls in love with two boys. Honestly, I've never really thought that it was possible to "romantically" love two people, but I suppose there is  a possibility. I just hope it never happens to me. o.O

I think I'll move onto the boys now.

I'll start with Chase, the tatted up bad boy on the cover. Chase was way over-possessive, even when he had just met her. I feel like I should be preparing for the abusive guy, because he leaves bruises on her when he forces her to talk to him. That is not a good sign, y'all. That's a very, very bad sign. Even if he apologizes profusely and stops drinking, I didn't particularly care for that side of him. He didn't even know that he had bruised her. I think the first half of the book was spent hoping that she didn't end up with Chase, but then the second half was spent with me wondering what the heck just happened. There's a ridiculously huge twist with Chase, and I guarantee you that you won't see it coming.

Since there's a love triangle, I guess I'll explain her love with Chase, and then her love with Brandon. With Chase, I kind of felt like it was more of a possessive thing. It was hard to let that first impression go. But for the most part, interactions with Chase just felt weird and stilted. I don't feel like they were really in love-- it ended up being more of a setup for the "huge twist that shall not be mentioned".  That's what I felt like, anyway.

Now I'll go to Brandon. Brandon was a bit different in my eyes. He was more of the good guy, and while it's rare for me to go for the good guy, I think I liked him. He walks a bit on the wild side, though, so maybe that's what helped me. The thing about Brandon is that he seemed so sweet, but sometimes you could just tell that he wanted to beat someone's face in. Yet we see throughout the book that he's forgiving to a fault. This boy is basically what every girl wants-- someone who'll stand up for her (even if she can do it herself), be sweet, and be sexy. So, what did I think of him? I simply liked him, I didn't love him to death or anything.

Now onto his love with Harper. He was more of the take care of you forever type-- she dreamed about marrying him for a long time, and was his girl for a long time, but I'm still not so sure about this "two loves" thing. It felt like she loved both of them, but like I said before Chase was more a possessive thing, and with Brandon it was more of a "I wanna take care of you" thing. I don't know. I still feel like there was a setup to get us to like Brandon earlier on. He never pressured her.

I don't know that she was better off with either of them, and that's the problem with me. I don't know. And because this is such a way long book with everything going on, I never really had a chance to figure it out. I'm going to assume Brandon, though, because he's the one that stuck by her, even if Chase didn't really have a choice.

All in all, my feelings about Taking Chances are really complicated. It had it's sad and happy moments, but a lot of it all boils down to how you feel about cheating for how much you'll like it.