Review: Complicate Me by M. Robinson

The blurb for the one drew me in.  I’m a sucker for angsty love story, especially when it’s all about that second chance for best friends to get their romance right.

Alexandra, called Alex by her friends and family, grew up in a small North Carolina beach town where the only care she had in the world was where her boys were and what they were doing today.  Austin, Jacob, Dylan and Lucas were her best friends and would protect her for anything, even themselves.

The majority of this book takes place between the time Alex was 10 – 18.  While I appreciated the backstory of how Lucas and Alex ended up where they did, I spent a lot of time during that period cringing.  Cringing at the very adult thoughts of a 13 year old Lucas for his best friend Alex.  Then cringing more as Lucas professes all these feelings for Alex as they age, while screwing fellow student Stacey and practically waving that in Alex’s face.  Then I was mad.  Mad that Lucas and the boys could whore their way through high school, yet Alex was supposed to stay atop the pedestal they placed her remaining pristine white and available for Lucas to toy with emotionally.

I welcomed teenage Cole and Alex’s attempt at having someone else in her life other than Lucas and the boys.  But then that relationship made me mad because all Alex was doing was stringing Cole along while she allowed herself to be emotionally kicked around by Lucas.  Alex and Lucas did nothing to endear me to them during these years.  Bottom line, they had a rather unhealthy relationship that left one or both of them in emotional tatters.  Their parents saw this, continually stepping into to steer these two away from each other.  At those moments I wanted to stand up and applaud, shouting “Yes!  Keep these two apart.  They’re poison together!.” So when Alex went to California for college, I was glad.  A 3,000 mile separation was just what they needed, because I was done.  No good could come from them being together.

But just as I was done with these characters, the author moved onto their adult years and their second chance.  Quite honestly, I didn’t care if Alex and Lucas managed to get their acts together and figure out how to be a couple.  I didn’t really like who either of them were together.  Lucas demanded, Alex fought for a second and then would cave in.  That was the MO their entire lives and I didn’t see how that was going to change now that they were in their twenties.  The author had them growing up a bit, having a big epiphany and deciding who and where they needed to be.  It wrapped up a little to neatly, especially for two people who where such a hot mess.

I went into this book really wanting to love it, but the characters were too unlikable to me.  I love angsty romances, but Alex and Lucas went beyond angst into unhealthy.  And after so many years of that, I couldn’t believe their HEA.