4.5 Smooches
Synopsis
Everything is going great for Madison Moriarty. She’s got nice parents, good friends, and she’s headed to UCLA at the end of the summer, the first step on an exciting journey towards becoming a world famous author just like her late father.
OK, so she may dress like she survived an explosion at an uptight, buttoned up Martha’s Vineyard branch of Tommy Hilfiger, but she’s a good girl, damn it, from her boring top-siders to her preppy sweaters right down to her stupid My Little Pony laundry day panties.
Rafe Stone… well, Rafe Stone is an asshole, and he’s going to fucking jail. That’s what happens when you steal your foster parents’ Camry and drive it halfway across Colorado, the passenger seat strewn with empty beer cans and a homemade bong. He’s been lucky so far, but this time the judge won’t be satisfied with a slap on the wrist… unless Maddy’s stepfather takes him in.
This is what happens when two worlds collide.
This is what happens when a nice, polite little princess gets thrown in with the stepbrother she never knew she had, a tattooed thug with a tight t-shirt, torn jeans, a pack of smokes and a bad attitude.
This is a story of love, hate and David Fucking Bowie.
You’re gonna love it.
Review
Well, color me surprised. I’m going to be honest here. I was nervous when my RCR blogger boss, Miranda, assigned this book to me. But, ever the team player, I chirpily replied “sure thing” when she IM’d me about it as I internally panicked while sitting on my couch, iPad in hand, fretting as I read the blurb. First, I haven’t ventured into the stepbrother pool yet. What can I say? I’ve been ambivalent on the concept; not put off, not freaked out, just kinda “Meh” about it. I’ve been wavering lately, though, thinking about wading in but I just hadn’t gotten around to it. Second, I really couldn’t see how I was going to relate to Rafe and Maddie; they are teenagers – high schoolers – for crying out loud! How could I possibly relate to them, I thought, I’m almost 30 years older than them! Well, guess what? I freakin’ loved Maddie. She was smart, she was funny, she was insightful, and she was honest.
“This abso-fucking-lutely isn’t the first impression I was hoping to make.”
Madison Moriarity, an 18-year-old recent high school grad, is preparing to leave for college just as her home life is totally upended by the arrival of her heretofore unknown stepbrother, Rafe. Maddie, or Princess Maddie as Rafe calls her, is a self-described “normal girl.” An average B student, blonde, Maddie describes her wardrobe as “an explosion at an uptight Martha’s Vineyard branch of Tommy Hilfiger.” She dreams of becoming an author, following in the footsteps of her deceased father, but she just doesn’t have the tales to tell. Yet.
“Oh, sweet. My room comes with a free girl.”
Rafe Stone hasn’t had an easy life. The son of a former punk musician, Mia Stone, he was raised by her and her second husband, a 9/11 first responder, who used booze and his fists on his wife and stepson to beat out the demons in his head leftover from his experiences that fateful day and the days that followed. Rafe and his mom finally escape from his stepfather and settle in Colorado to start over. Mia, for reason known only to her, commits suicide leaving a 15-year-old Rafe to the foster care system. An angry young man turns angrier, and in a final act of defiance, the judge gives him a choice – move in with the biological father he has never met for one year or head to prison. He chooses his father, but he doesn’t make it easy on the man. He arrives at the Moriarity home with a chip the size of a surfboard on his shoulder, and he doesn’t give a single inch at all to his father or stepmother the entire time he is there.
“Those piercing blue eyes…those eyes cut through to the depths of my soul.”
This book chronicles Maddie and Rafe’s brief time together. Maddie developed a crush on Rafe, and she’s struggling with it for a lot of reasons. He’s her stepbrother, and despite being so hot he renders her a stupid, stuttering mess, he’s also a big, fat ass who manages to push every single button sending her straight into one heck of a pissed off girl. Their next few encounters go much like the first, but then something happens one night and Rafe swoops in to Maddie’s defense. The next morning, it’s Maddie’s turn to rush to Rafe’s defense. From there, their relationship changes drastically. That is until the consequences of that night force Rafe and Maddie apart for seven long, eventful years.
“…those piercing blue eyes…In them I see not just love, but our future rolling out ahead of us. I see endless possibilities, excitement and adventure.”
While this book was a super fast read (I knocked it off in under 2 hours), it was very well written, it was witty and it was a complete and total surprise of the best kind. This story is a great example of not judging a book by its cover, or in this case title. The author advises in the blurb, “You’re gonna love it,” and I did, I really, really did!
A gem of read and a helluva fun way to kill a couple of hours, Aya Fukunishi’s Stepbrother Fallen gets a lip-smacking 4.5 Smooches from me!!
~ Danielle Palumbo
