Review: How To Love by Katie Cotugno

How to Love by Katie Cotugno
389 PAGES
Release Date: October 1st, 2013
Publisher: Balzer and Bray
Genre: Contemporary
Level: YA/NA
Rating: 2 STARS

Goodreads Summary:
Before: Reena Montero has loved Sawyer LeGrande for as long as she can remember: as natural as breathing, as endless as time. But he’s never seemed to notice that Reena even exists…until one day, impossibly, he does. Reena and Sawyer fall in messy, complicated love. But then Sawyer disappears from their humid Florida town without a word, leaving a devastated—and pregnant—Reena behind.

After: Almost three years have passed, and there’s a new love in Reena’s life: her daughter, Hannah. Reena’s gotten used to being without Sawyer, and she’s finally getting the hang of this strange, unexpected life. But just as swiftly and suddenly as he disappeared, Sawyer turns up again. Reena doesn’t want anything to do with him, though she’d be lying if she said Sawyer’s being back wasn’t stirring something in her. After everything that’s happened, can Reena really let herself love Sawyer LeGrande again?

In this breathtaking debut, Katie Cotugno weaves together the story of one couple falling in love—twice.

Regrettably, How to Love most definitely did not reach my high expectations. From what I have gathered, this was a hit or miss book although there were quite a lot of readers who thoroughly enjoyed this book. How to Love held promise with its exceptional writing but the characters and the love story was not something I enjoyed reading. I literally ended up skimming the last 60% of the book just to see how it would end.

Reena is an irritating character in this book. I expected more of a maturity between her past and present self and there was NONE. I thought we would see a strong connection between her and Hannah but we barely see them actually bonding and her being a mother. I feel like her present self would have chosen Sawyer over Hannah as sad as it is to say. It may just be the way Reena is in my perspective but her actions when Sawyer comes back are just NO. How do you fall right back into Sawyer's trap when you're with another guy for one and the fact that Hannah never had an actual father figure?? I did like past Reena more than present Reena especially as we see how she originally was but then Sawyer came and ruined everything.

Sawyer is the one who dashed my hopes for a heartbreaking, all the feels, wonderful story. In the past, he's annoying and cocky. I'm not sure how Reena was able to fall in love with him because honestly if my boyfriend was blatantly flirting with another girl, I would be very mad at him and a few kisses would not make me feel better or any less angry with him. He was reckless, a jerk, and a plain douche. He most definitely was not the best match for Reena in the past nor in the present. I feel like their "love" was NOT actual love but could have just been a high school thing and been left at that.

 

I did like the idea of being able to fall in love with the same guy twice, because who doesn't love second chance romances but Reena and Sawyer's story just did not do the trick for me. However just because I didn't enjoy it doesn't mean anyone else would. I would hesitantly recommend mainly and only to those who very, very like contemporary stories but if you don't I recommend you to just pass on this one. Happy Readings!