Review: Lost and Found by Nicole Williams

Lost and Found

Author: Nicole Williams
Publication Date: May 6, 2013

There’s complicated. And there’s Rowen Sterling.

After numbing pain for the past five years with boys, alcohol, and all-around apathy, she finds herself on a Greyhound bus to nowhere Montana the summer after she graduates high school. Her mom agreed to front the bill to Rowen’s dream art school only if Rowen proves she can work hard and stay out of trouble at Willow Springs Ranch. Cooking breakfast at the crack of dawn for a couple dozen ranch hands and mucking out horse stalls are the last things in the world Rowen wants to spend her summer doing.

Until Jesse Walker saunters into her life wearing a pair of painted-on jeans, a cowboy hat, and a grin that makes something in her chest she’d thought was frozen go boom-boom. Jesse’s like no one else, and certainly nothing like her. He’s the bright and shiny to her dark and jaded.

Rowen knows there’s no happily-ever-after for the golden boy and the rebel girl—happily-right-now is a stretch—so she tries to forget and ignore the boy who makes her feel things she’s not sure she’s ready to feel. But the more she pushes him away, the closer he seems to get. The more she convinces herself she doesn’t care, the harder she falls.

When her dark secrets refuse to stay locked behind the walls she’s kept up for years, Rowen realizes it’s not just everyone else she needs to be honest with. It’s herself.

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I am pretty sure that I just found another 2013 favorite in Lost and Found. This was an exceptional new adult novel and I can't believe how quickly I read this one. I mean, my brain would not let my hands put this one down until I finished. I loved the storyline, I loved the characters, I loved the writing; I just plain loved this book.

Each character was definitely not what I expected and I liked that because it kept the book from being too cliche. Rowan was the bad girl who had a tough life and acted out. However, instead of being surly and rude, she was kind and respectful. She may have been a wise ass and used sarcasm as a defense mechanism but she was just broken inside and lacked the love and attention she needed to be self confident. The entire Walker family saw her for who she really was inside and never judged her. They showed her what it felt like to be loved and cared for and they helped her open up and find herself too. 

Jesse was the epitome of SEXY. He was hot, sweet, smart and he saw through Rowen and genuinely accepted her. He was so deep and she hit the nail on the head when she called him "a cowboy Aristotle." He wanted to get to know Rowen and help show her that she can be whoever she wants to be and not let her past or her mother define her. He really pushed her to open  up and he showed her what it meant to be unconditionally loved by someone. I really want me one of these cowboys. :-)

I also really liked Rose and Josie too. Generally the gorgeous ex-girlfriend is a conniving bitch, but that wasn't Josie. She was a genuinely kind person who liked and befriended Rowen and accepted that Jesse could love and want Rowen too. Rose was like the mother Rowen never had but always deserved and I loved how she accepted her for who she was and even told her that she admired her. She wouldn't allow Rowen to belittle herself and she helped her find who she was inside and who she wanted to be. 

I really enjoy the idea behind the bad girl falling for the good guy and letting him bring out the better person in her. It is refreshing after reading so many books about the good girl and the bad boy. I also loved the whole city girl goes to the country ranch and finds herself. It was a plot line that I hadn't read in a while and the author did a really good job with it. The writing in this book was exceptional and the plot flowed really well. This is my first Nicole Williams book but I am definitely a fan of her writing and will be picking up more of her books in the immediate future.

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Favorite Quotes:

"The more experience you have with P.O.S., the better equipped you are to identify one who isn't." I nodded as I wondered what those words would look like tattooed across my forehead. It could change a lot of girls' lives." ~ Josie & Rowen (Lost & Found by Nicole Williams)

"He hitched a leg up onto the bed and twisted to face me. Could someone, please, for the love of God, find the man a shirt? The whole encounter could't be healthy for a girl's heart." ~Rowen (Lost & Found by Nicole Williams)

IPOD Picks:

"Wanted" by Hunter Hayes

"Enchanted" by Taylor Swift

Sources

Synopsis: Goodreads

Cover Photo: Goodreads