Review: Subject to Change – Alessandra Thomas

Joey made her dad a deathbed promise that she would become a doctor, and dedicate herself to fighting the very cancer that took his life. There’s just one problem -three years into her pre-med classes, she’s struggling to stay on top of the curve, let alone prove she’s dazzling enough to earn a spot in an Ivy League medical school. In a Hail Mary move, she throws a basic Business 101 class into her semester schedule, banking on a perfect score to boost her GPA.

That is, until she’s paired for a final project with Hawk, the bartending, motorbike-riding, gorgeously bedheaded loser who falls asleep in class and communicates in one-word sentences.

Hawk does whatever he wants, whenever he wants, which sets Joey on edge – in every possible way. As they get to know each other, her urge to scream at him is curbed only by her fantasies of tearing his clothes off. Soon those fantasies become reality, and Joey realizes Hawk makes her feel more fully herself than any of the rich boys her mother and sorority sisters approve of.

But the promise to her father hangs over her head, and the harder Joey tries to succeed in her chosen career, the faster everything falls into a hopeless tailspin of bad grades, broken promises and guilt. It doesn’t help to have Hawk sitting like a devil on her shoulder, insisting she should be free to live however she wants to live – like he does.

The only thing Joey knows is that her neatly organized life is crushing her – and Hawk’s bad attitude might be the only thing that can save her.

Series: Picturing Perfect #2
Release Date: June 25, 2013
Publisher: Alessandra Thomas
Source: Inkslinger PR
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Reviewer’s Thoughts

I figured I was getting in over my head with this book when, on the first page, I can to this sentence:

At what pH could histidine best be precipitated and filtered from a solution of amino acids?

I said to myself, this girl must be going to school to be a doctor and if she’s as confused by the question as I am, she’s in trouble.

Trouble doesn’t even begin to describe what Josephine Daly is.  A college junior, study pre-med, she’s drowning in science classes and trying her very best to keep her head above water.  She has virtually no social life, with the exception of talking to the girls at her sorority or those that happen to be at the library while she’s studying.  It’s not until a very disruptive William “Hawk” Hawkins enters her life that  Joey realizes that all decisions are subject to change and it’s ok to take a different course than the one that was designated for you.

This book made me sad because Joey was forced down a career path that had been guilted on her.  College is hard enough without having to have the added pressure of being the next Dr. Daly, in a long line of Dr, Daly’s.  Sure, Joey had said that was what she wanted to do when she was ten, but her family never gave her the option of saying “I changed my mind” when she turned eighteen.  Instead, she was killing herself doing something in the memory of her dead father because that was what was expected of her.  On a certain level, I could understand why Joey never said anything or maybe why her mother pushed her to do it, but in the end I would have hoped her mother would have realized what was going on, despite what Joey said, and forced her to be honest.  The only person who really makes Joey take a good hard look at what she’s doing is Hawk.

Hawk had his own set of issues, a struggling bar and an out-of-control sister, but he was trying.  He didn’t expect anything from the uptight girl who sat next to him in his business class, but Joey got under his skin.  Beneath all his gruffness was a guy who had a hard time with his emotions and understanding love doesn’t always have to hurt.  He may have taken a few things out on Joey and hurt her feelings, but he always found a way to get back with her because she filled an empty place in his life.

This was a story full of angst and a tiny bit of new adult drama, but one that I couldn’t put down.  I loved the journey Joey took to discover exactly what she wanted to do with her and life and how what seemed impossible with Hawk came together in the end.  Definitely one to read.