TITLE: The Secret Of Ella & Micha
SERIES: The Secret #1
AUTHOR: Jessica Sorensen
PUBLICATION DATE: October 4, 2012
PUBLISHER: Independent
PAGES: 313 pages
FORMAT: Paperback
SOURCE: Purchased
RATING: 5 stars
In my search for an amazing book, this is probably the closest I’ve come since I finished Easy back in December. I’m currently adding all of Jessica Sorensen’s books to my to-read list with over enthusiastic glee and will be downloading her The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden as soon as I’m finished with this review.
Ella and Micha both had somewhat traumatic childhoods, and they managed to stay sane through them because they had each other, but when Ella’s mother commits suicide, Ella can’t handle it anymore and she runs away. She leaves Micha standing in the pouring rain and leaves town. Now, 8 months later, when her first year of college at UNLA is over, she has no choice but to head back home and confront all the things she left behind. And Micha is the one she fears the most.
Watching Ella switch between the fiery girl she once was and the subdued girl she has made everyone at college believe she is was perfect. She can almost keep her cool, but then Micha shows up and she loses her shit. I am personally a big fan of her original personality, the fully alive girl who wasn’t afraid of anything is something to be envied. The quiet, college girl is just a façade because she’s scared of getting hurt and as long as no one knows her, she can’t care and is therefore safe.
Micha was the perfect hero. Though he is far from perfect, with his own set of issues, he is so head over heels for Ella that he’ll do whatever it takes to help her. When she ran away from him, he spent the entire time she was gone searching for her, needing to know she was alive and okay. So when she steps back into his life, he is full of a wide range of emotions, love, anger, and hope all rolled into one. I absolutely loved him, how he never gives up on her and he pushes her to be the girl he knows she wants to be, even if she won’t admit it. Their relationship is the stuff of fairy tales, trapped in a real world setting with alcoholic fathers, dead beat parents, and fears as real as anything we’ve ever felt.
Then they have a great supporting cast, Ella’s friend Lila, Micha’s friend Ethan, and Micha’s mom are all wonderful characters. Lila met Ella in college so seeing her switch into someone completely different would have freaked a lot of people out, but Lila rolls with it and still accepts Ella for exactly who she is. Ethan has helped Micha search for Ella even though he thinks Micha should just give it up. Micha’s mom is supportive for whatever her son gets into which is something I don’t see a lot of these days. Parents in novels especially seem to always be the bad guys, forbidding relationships and pushing their kids to do what they think is best no matter what the kid thinks.
I was so excited to read this that I bought the physical copy from amazon and before it even arrived, I downloaded the kindle version so I could go ahead and read it. It was definitely worth it. I recommend this to everyone who enjoyed Easy by Tammara Webber or Pushing The Limits by Katie McGarry.
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