Review: Lost and Found (Lost and Found #1) by Nicole Williams

Publish Date: May 7th, 2013
Publisher: Smashwords Edition
Rating: 2 / 5
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Downloaded a free copy from Amazon.

Blurb:

There’s complicated. And there’s Rowen Sterling.

After numbing pain for the past five years with boys, alcohol, and all-around apathy, she finds herself on a Greyhound bus to nowhere Montana the summer after she graduates high school. Her mom agreed to front the bill to Rowen’s dream art school only if Rowen proves she can work hard and stay out of trouble at Willow Springs Ranch. Cooking breakfast at the crack of dawn for a couple dozen ranch hands and mucking out horse stalls are the last things in the world Rowen wants to spend her summer doing.

Until Jesse Walker saunters into her life wearing a pair of painted-on jeans, a cowboy hat, and a grin that makes something in her chest she’d thought was frozen go boom-boom. Jesse’s like no one else, and certainly nothing like her. He’s the bright and shiny to her dark and jaded.

Rowen knows there’s no happily-ever-after for the golden boy and the rebel girl—happily-right-now is a stretch—so she tries to forget and ignore the boy who makes her feel things she’s not sure she’s ready to feel. But the more she pushes him away, the closer he seems to get. The more she convinces herself she doesn’t care, the harder she falls.

When her dark secrets refuse to stay locked behind the walls she’s kept up for years, Rowen realizes it’s not just everyone else she needs to be honest with. It’s herself.

First Thoughts

Lost and Found was just "meh" and it had a lot to do with the female MC, Rowen. She's "complicated" and "troubled". Ha, I guess. She drank, smoked, and messed around with boys in high school. Yes, she sounds so troubled. -_-

I grew tired of her inner monologue-- I'm troubled. Woe is me. Everyone hates me because of my goth makeup and black clothes. Woe is me. I've only known Jesse for 2 seconds but I love him. Oh wait, here's a jerk named Garth-- he's cute, too. Why would Jesse be interested in a weirdo like me! Woe is me. Jesse, Garth, Jesse, Garth. Woe is me. Oh no, that jerk Garth says Jesse has  GF. Jesse says he doesn't. I believe Garth for some reason. Woe is me.

OMG. I wanted to pull Rowen out of the book and give her a piece of my mind.

What Could Have Been Better

Rowen. So annoying. Nicole Williams couldn't have wrote a more annoying female MC. I couldn't stand all the emo nonsense. I LOLed hard when Rowen insisted she wasn't emo. Ugh. I did not care AT ALL when she told Jesse what her secret was.

Insta-love. Sometimes it works. In Lost and Found it doesn't. She falls in love with Jesse after two seconds because of his "painted on jeans". Yep, a cute boy with a great butt-- instant marriage material.

The dramatic ravine scene. Cowboy Jesse falls down a ravine trying to save a calf. Rowen-rode-a-horse-one-time horsebacks down a treacherous path in the dark and rain to miraculously save him. WTF. No.

TL;DR

I wouldn't recommend this to my worst enemy. Rowen is the most annoying character of all time. Jesse isn't that much better. The insta-love was stupid. The dramatic ravine scene had me rolling my eyes. Zero feels when Rowen revealed her traumatizing secret. -_-

2 asterisks