CATCHING LIAM
So when her best friends and fellow boy catchers start dropping like flies junior year, Jillian is determined to keep boys in her bedroom and out of her heart. Until she meets Liam McAvoy, the kind of guy that sticks around to make waffles and who can’t—or perhaps won’t—take a hint.
Study abroad student Liam doesn’t want to be another notch on Jillian’s bedpost. Actually he has much more interesting ideas for Jillian and her bedposts, but his student visa’s set expiration date means he can’t promise her forever. That doesn’t mean he’s going to walk away from the challenge of discovering why Jillian is hell-bent at keeping people at a distance.
Before long, neither is sure who is catching who—or if they’re playing for keeps. Jillian knows one thing though: falling in love will not only break the only rule of boy-catching, it could also break her heart.
Sophia Bleu is a secret identity where I can write about fantasies and falling in love and all the smexiness in between. In real life, I’m likely catching a plane, chasing kids, or making out with the love of my life—all 6 ft 3 inches of hotness that he is. Life is pretty good.Erin’s Review
Catching Liam by Sophia Bleu
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Jillian is 21 and definitely not looking for a long-term relationship. She is a Junior in college and every week since freshman year has been going out with her girlfriends for “boy catching night”.
Unfortunately (in Jillian’s opinion) things have been changing, as both her close friends have moved into relationships and Jillian has refused to even consider anything more than a one night stand. The book opens chapter one with Jillian waking up to the smells of breakfast being made which she is firmly opposed to since she doesn’t typically want the guys she hooks up with staying longer than necessary.
Enter Liam…he is definitely swoony and happens to say all the right things. On top of that, he is Scottish and if you don’t know this about me, I appreciate a great guy character who knows how to woo a woman and just happens to have an accent.
Example 1: “Making a beautiful woman breakfast after a night of debauchery is the definition of polite.”
Example 2: “You look unbelievably sexy. I’m afraid we won’t be getting any sleep tonight.”
There are more lines – and in skimming my notes it appears most of the ones I noted revolved around his willingness to make Jillian breakfast….anytime.
Although Liam knows he will be going back to Scotland after the school year, he knows he wants more than a one night stand with Jillian. Unfortunately, he has his work cut out for him and he has to work hard to get anywhere with her. He is definitely willing to put up with her antics and figure out what he needs to do to win her over and eventually he does. As with anyone though, he has his limits on what he will put up with and because of the secret that Jillian is keeping from him, he is a bit behind the curve when it comes to her. Lucky for Jillian he is someone who doesn’t give up easily and is very determined to give their relationship everything he has. If not for that, they wouldn’t have made it past the one night stand.
From the beginning it is clear that Jillian is hiding something. She takes medications and has brief episodes that are unexplained to the reader until a fairly significant episode hits her. Because of her illness, she makes some choices that I wouldn’t necessarily agree with – mostly around her relationships – both with Liam and her mother. She continuously wants to feel useful because she is worried there will be a point in her life where she won’t be able to be.
I found myself a bit frustrated with Jillian’s character – I get it, she is losing control of certain aspects of her life. It seemed to me that she was a bit over the top – perhaps it is because I’m not in college (and haven’t been for a while) but as loose as she appears to be, I didn’t understand how she could get any fulfillment – outside of the moment – from it and it actually made her seem less in control since, we never got to hear from her how it made her feel and what she really got out of it.
Jillian’s relationship with her mother is a huge point of the story. It is clear there are issues between them – her mother (Tara) would prefer it if she moved back to California so she could keep closer tabs on Jillian. At least that is what Jillian thinks…come to find out it isn’t really that she wants to control Jillian it is that she is worried about her and despite what Jillian thinks, really does love her. It was great to see the relationship between these two characters evolve over the span of the story. At first I did think Tara was just trying to control every aspect of Jillian’s life but eventually (when the characters actually talked about things) it was clear the concern was because Tara loved her and wanted what was best for Jillian.
It is clear that Jillian relies on her friendship with Jess and Cassie to help her get through college. They are very close and although their relationships with their boyfriends have caused their relationships to change, they are still very close. It was a completely relatable situation because we’ve all been in those situations that when a close girlfriend starts dating a guy, they sometimes disappear for a while and that is what Jillian seems to be working through. Jess has school and Brett while Cassie is very much invested in Trevor. Although their relationships were briefly mentioned, we don’t get to see too much of them. I am curious to learn more as I feel like there is more to each of these stories that we didn’t get to dig into in this book.
Overall I enjoyed this book. There were some minor editing issues but nothing that took away from the overall tone and feel of the book. I found that it was a quick read and Sophia Bleu definitely knows how to write the steamy scenes. On top of that, Jillian’s story (there is definitely some angst here) kept me turning the pages to see what was going to happen next. I always appreciate a good story, a swoony male lead and a headstrong, opinionated female lead so in the end I can clearly say that this book kept me engaged and I look forward to seeing what the rest of the series has in store. Hopefully this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Liam as he was definitely one of the reasons I think I enjoyed it so much.
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