Review for Boomerang (Boomerang #1) by Noelle August

TITLE: Boomerang
SERIES: Boomerang #1
AUTHOR: Noelle August (AKA Veronica Rossi & Lorin Oberweger)
PUBLICATION DATE: July 8, 2014
PUBLISHER: William Morrow Paperbacks
PAGES: 325 pages
FORMAT: E-ARC / ARC
SOURCE: Publisher via Edelweiss / Freebie shelf at Malaprops
RATING: 5 bows

Mia Galliano dreams of being a filmmaker. She is determined to make it to the top on her own, without flashing her mom’s name around to be successful. Ethan Vance had officially finished his college soccer career and really has no idea what he wants to do. He needs a paying job, though, stat because rent and food isn’t free. They wake up in bed after an apparent one night stand, both late for work. They share a cab only to discover that they both have an internship at the same office, competing for the single job that will be offered at the end. Both deciding that buckling down and winning the job is what they need, but their mutual attraction keeps getting in the way and things get pretty complicated, pretty quickly. Who will win the Boomerang job? You’ll just have to read to find out!

Mia was a pretty interesting character from the start. Atsy and cool and completely comfortable in her own skin. She is obviously a hard worker and has this fascinating balance of confidence and insecurity. She loves her family to bits, especially her grandmother and would do anything for them. She should have irritated me from the moment I learned she comes from a wealthy family. Those snobby kinds of characters always get on my nerves. It’s most likely because I’m jealous of their ability to get whatever they want by just asking daddy pretty please, but their whole demeanor usually annoys me. I read The Moment We Began by Sarra Cannon a little while back and her heroine drove me nuts. I’m was a child of working class parents and am now working class myself and there has been no point in my life where I haven’t thought about the necessity of money to get by. So snobby rich ladies who put no thought into how the world really works and swears money can’t solve all problems just irritate the fuck out of me. If you really think money can’t solve problems give your fortune to a starving family or people without health insurance who need major medical surgery. I’m sure you’re money would solve their problems….okay, I went off on a bit of a tangent there, huh? The point of that rant is that in most cases, a girl in Mia’s situation would irritate me. Mia doesn’t though. Despite the luxurious upbringing, Mia is very down to Earth and lovable. I found nothing about her irritating, which is really an accomplishment seeing as how I’m predisposed to hate her.

Ethan is just a big sweetheart. He’s original dream was to play soccer, but sports injuries took that away from him. He doesn’t let that phase him, instead working towards finding a new dream. He coaches a kids soccer team in his spare time and it’s clear those kids light up his world. He doesn’t have parents to fall back on because he knows his folks struggle to get by and don’t need his debt adding to that. He knows a job is what he needs to survive and he wants the opportunity Boomerang can provide him, but the deeper in he gets, the more he wonders if he can take this opportunity from Mia, who wants it for the chance to work on her craft where he just wants it for rake in some money and make ends meet. He’s that big softie, that boy next door sweet guy, but with a muscular body due to his hours on the soccer field. I loved that we get a reason he’s so ripped. I’ve read one too many novels lately where the lead guy is drop dead gorgeous with lickable abs and defined arms and muscles for days, but no real justification for it. Newsflash? Those don’t appear out of nowhere. You don’t just wake up one morning and look down and see awesome abs (in our dreams, right?). Soccer is an acceptable reason.

I loved this novel. I loved it a lot. I devoured it pretty quickly. I needed to know more and to see what happened next. This is New Adult done right. We get the appropriate level of smut without veering off into erotica territory and we get a story about two people finding love despite the odds within the appropriate age range. We get beautiful writing that feels very real life, along with a plot that has the perfect balance of predictable and unexpected. A perfect point is that this should feel a bit like instalove because these two meet and are drawn to each other immediately and things progress from there, but it doesn’t. These two have lust at first sight and then spend their weekdays at a shared desk learning more and more about each other. Their attraction grows and builds, never feeling forced or fake.

I loved every small piece of this novel. I feel like it’s one I’ll go back and read again and again because it’s absolutely perfect. If the second one is half as good as this, I’ll adore it too. I knew when I heard that Veronica Rossi helped write this, it would be amazing, but I wasn’t expecting this level of awesome. If you like new adult, this is for you. If you want to try new adult but are scared of the oversexualized novels, this is for you. If you love contemporary romances, this is for you. It’s amazing and I just want more!

****Thank you to William Morrow Paperbacks for providing me with an eARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review****