ARC REVIEW: Dragonfly (Dragonfly #1) by Leigh Talbert Moore

Title/Series: Dragonfly | Dragonfly #1
Author: Leigh Talbert Moore
Publisher: Leigh Talbert Moore
Expected publication: June 6th 2013
Format: eBook | Pages: 264
Genre: NA, Contemporary, Romance
Source: NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
★★★ (3/5) Stars!

Leigh Talbert Moore | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

“Gossip Girl meets VC Andrews in this contemporary family saga. Love, lies, and betrayal become the new normal when Anna enters the world of Jack and Lucy Kyser.” –Magan Vernon, international bestselling author of The Only Exception

Three bad things I learned this year:

-People you trust lie, even parents. 

-That hot guy, the one who’s totally into you, he might not be the one. 

-Things are not always how they appear.

Three good things I learned this year:
-Best friends are always there for you, even when they’re far away.
-That other hot guy, the one who remembers your birthday, he just might be the one.
-Oh, and things are not always how they appear.
 

Anna Sanders expected an anonymous (and uneventful) senior year until she crossed paths with rich-and-sexy Jack Kyser and his twin sister Lucy.

Pulling Anna into their extravagant lifestyle on the Gulf Coast, Lucy pushed Anna outside her comfort zone, and Jack showed her feelings she’d never experienced... Until he mysteriously withdrew.

Anna turned to her internship at the city paper and to her old attraction for Julian, a handsome local artist and rising star, for distraction. But both led to her discovery of a decades-old secret closely guarded by the twins’ distant, single father. 

A secret that could permanently change all their lives.

UNDERTOW, Book #2 in the Dragonfly series, coming July 18!

I received this book from NetGalley and All Night Reads in exchange for an honest review. I was very excited to receive this book. I saw it maybe a month or so ago and the blurb had me very interested. It sounded intriguing and exciting. And while I was drawn in instantly and having a hard time putting it down...at first, I came to have one huge problem with this book. Anna.

It's extremely hard to enjoy a book when the main character has absolutely no self respect. The lengths in which Anna was willing to go through, the amount of times she kept running back to one of the guys who, in the beginning I sort of liked, was just sickening. She was so weak and so stupid. And I have not even a twinge of guilt saying that. I mean what would you do if you were watching your friend do this? Tie herself up in knots over some guy who kept saying "This changes nothing we're only friends" right after he does what is clearly very non-friend like things to her? And then crushes her in the aftermath with the whole friend thing. And each time he smiles and says sorry she runs right back? All the while guy number two, who can only be described as absolutely amazing, sits in the wings and would give anything to make her happy. Ugh. It was pathetic and made me wince at times while reading it.

Every time she would turn Amazing down (I'm not giving names as to which boy is amazing and which one is a total jerk so you can find out for yourself.) Anyway, Amazing would go back to his sort of ex not really girlfriend but friend with benefits you could say and surprise, surprise...Anna would get mad! Sorry sweetheart you can't have everything! I'm just not Anna's biggest fan sorry. Maybe had she shown more growth I wouldn't be so annoyed. But really she didn't. I can't tell you the number of times she'd "Go home and run up to her room and throw herself on her bed". Sigh.

There were also a couple of times I felt sort of cheated. I guess it could be a good example of being told and not shown. Jack was supposed to meet up with Anna at her grandmother's place and spend the afternoon. Meet her mom and grandma and just sort of hang out. There was all sorts of nervous build up with her being afraid for them all to meet etc. Even when he showed up and they were alone on the beach it was like okay lets get this over with. Only to have the next paragraph read something about how "they all got along great that afternoon" It was like...that's it? I don't get to see any of the interaction? Build it up to be something to look forward to maybe some funny moment and I get told everything went swell? Could have done at least one paragraph.

The big secret was pretty easy to figure out which wasn't that big of a deal to me, it was still a good storyline. Yet  not everything was completely revealed in this book. So I'm going to have to read book 2 because I am curious and because I care quite a bit about what happens to Amazing. I just really, really....REALLY hope that Anna shows some growth in Undertow. Overall I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.