Stormy Connection Blog Tour
Taken by Storm and Unbroken Connection
by Angela Morrison
My Rating: 4 stars
My Rating: 4 stars
I've had the honor of participating in my first blog tour and this is my first book review...ever. Quite a milestone. This blog tour consisted of 2 books, Taken by Storm and its sequel, Unbroken Connection.
Leesie Hunt's Unbreakable Rules:
No Kissing (at least not of the French variety)...No Sex (hah! not even close to happening anyway)...No Dating Outside the Mormon Faith (what would be the point?)... ABSOLUTELY No Falling in Love with the Wrong Boy (would ruin everything)
Leesie thinks she has her whole life planned out: get into the school of her dreams, write her poems, meet the perfect guy, and settle down. Then she meets Michael--a boy whose parents were killed in a diving accident during a terrible storm.
Michael is drowning in tragedy. And all Leesie wants is to save him. With each day, her heart hurts more. Could it be, perfect Leesie is falling from grace? Or is she just falling in love?
But if Leesie gives in to temptation, who is going to save her?
Against all odds, the couple that swept you away in TAKEN BY STORM is back. Michael is in Thailand diving his dream. Leesie is at BYU living hers.
And they just can't leave each other alone.
Their romance rekindles, deeper than before. They grow desperate to see one another again. To hold one another again. Michael decides there is only one direction their relationship can go and asks Leesie the ultimate question. Her answer challenges everything Michael is and wants to be.
Can she change for him?
Can he change for her?
Enough?
Angela Morrison actually uses a different approach to telling the story of Michael and Leesie. It is all through Michael's dive logs and Leesie's poems. I found it refreshing and had no difficulty following the story.
In these two books Angela deals with the difficult but vital topic of premarital sex, especially for teens. There are some steamy make out sessions but she handles the topic well and discreetly without explicit detail. Michael and Leesie come from completely different backgrounds and as a result have completely different standards. This story showed true to life conflict as Leesie tries to stick to her values and Michael tries to understand them. This is real life. It shows the temptations that teenagers have to deal with every day. It shows the consequences of letting your values slide and also the consequences of standing strong. I loved it!
As I read the story of Michael and Leesie, the word real kept running through my mind. This story is real. The characters are real. I could truly see the story from both points of view. Michael is not a perfect hero, Leesie is not a perfect heroine. They each had strengths and weaknesses. There were times when I could have screamed at Michael or when I wanted to smack Leesie upside her head. The reality of the characters and story line made it a great, believable story.
At first Michael believes that love and physical intimacy are one in the same. Leesie doesn't really know love at all. Together they learn that love is sacrifice, respect, dedication, determination, self-control and work.
I loved this story. I would recommend that parents read it first to determine if and when it's appropriate for their child (of course I think that about any book--parents should know what they're kids are reading). I think its a little mature for my 12 year old, but I believe it's a good thing for teenagers to read, especially older teens. They need to know the consequences that can come from their daily choices.
Now I'm excited to read Cayman Summer to see how the story unfolds.
Great work Angela!
