Title: All Good Things (The Good Life #0.5
- Standalone prequel to The Good Life)
Author: Jodie Beau
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Published on 31st January 2014
Blog Tour Organised By: Kelly @ Have
Book Will Read (Blog button is attached in the email. You definitely don’t
have to use it but feel free to if you would like to.)
ABOUT ALL GOOD THINGS
Goodreads
Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18585830-all-good-things
All Good Things…
are wild and free.
This is going to be the
best summer ever! Bonfires, pool parties, trips to the beach, throwing her arms
in the air while riding down the open road in a convertible – she’s going to do
it all.
Roxie has plans. It’s the
last summer before college graduation. By this time next year she’ll be living
in the “real” world; ie: paying bills, searching for a job that doesn’t require
an apron, and maybe even sleeping on a bed that doesn’t turn into a couch. If
there’s ever a time to be fun, irresponsible and reckless, it’s now.
But things don’t always go
as planned.
Before the summer has even
started, Roxie makes a discovery that breaks her heart and shatters her
confidence. Her hopes of having the Best Summer Ever go straight in the trash.
Forget the beach. Forget the bonfires. Forget summer altogether.
If only her childhood
friend, Jake, would let her be. His contagious smile keeps popping up and
dragging her to every social event in Ann Arbor. Reluctant at first, his
happy-go-lucky attitude becomes an addiction. It isn’t long before Roxie starts
to wonder if her longtime friend might be the perfect cure for her heartbreak.
This summer might be good after all.
But All Good Things…
must come to an end.
**All Good Things is an NA
prequel to the contemporary 2013 release The Good Life. The books can be read
in either order, or as stand-alones.**
All. Good. Things.
For the record.. I have been waiting for this book since the SECOND I finished "The Good Life". Jodie Beau was actually one of the first authors I met when I entered blog-land. The Good Life was also one of the first books that I completely freaked out over on my blog. I've been dying for more Jake and Roxie, and I got it in this book. I'm not sure I can totally explain what All Good Things did to me, but it was amazing. It brought me back to endless summers, carefree nights, and first loves. And we finally get to see how it all happened between Jake and Roxie. Think you couldn't fall in love with Jake any more? Wrong. So wrong.
"My dad is an ass. My mom is a jerk. But I changed my mind about Roxie. I'm glad she's not my real sister. Because I just noticed for the first time how blue her eyes are. She's actually kind of amazing."
Throughout The Good Life, I always had it in the back of my head that it was Roxie chasing, and Jake running. I didn't expect that both of them would be running to and from each other at any given time. Their story, is SO adorably young love, that I'm pretty sure that anyone out there can relate.
"I'm just waiting for the right one. When all the newness wears off and she stops shaving and starts wearing boring underwear that doesn't even match, and I still want to be around her, I'll stop. It just hasn't happened yet."
It was fun, playful, endearing, sad, beautiful, frustrating, sweet, and adorable. It was absolutely all things Jake and Roxie.
"Jake and I had a high level of comfort between us, too, but it was a different kind. We had a more subtle type of intimacy. We could say anything to each other, no matter how embarrassing or persona. We could fight with confidence because we knew we would always make up. We could tease without hurting. We could be at our best or at our worst and knew the other wasn't going anywhere."
This book made me miss college summers, HARD. It was driving until you felt better. Living in the moment. Making your own moments. Falling for someone without a safety net. Finding yourself. And it makes you feel, seriously FEEL, so good inside. It also makes you laugh your ass off in typical Jake and Roxie style. But we all know how this chapter of their life ended. We all know where The Good Life picked up. And even though I saw it coming, it still hit so hard. I actually cried. I KNEW it was coming, and I still cried. I'm not sure if I cried more for Jake and Roxie, or if I cried because of all the memories that this book brought back for me. But either way, Jodie, yet again, has managed to send me on an emotional rollercoaster that I never wanted to get off.
If you haven't read The Good Life yet, go read it. Read it now. Read it YESTERDAY. Want to talk about nailing your "debut novel", Jodie Beau did it with bells on with The Good Life. If you haven't picked up All Good Things yet, DO IT. Trust me. You're missing out if you don't read this series.
Favorite Quote:
"A lot of times we don't realize something special is happening until the moment is long gone. This time I now it. I hope I can find a way to keep this image with me until the end of time."
I didn’t
drink often, but when I did, I didn’t know when to stop. It wasn’t because I
was a total lush – but I got so uncomfortable around crowds and used the
alcohol to loosen up. Sometimes (okay, fine, most times) I got a little too
loosened up. On bad nights I ended up fondled by strangers, passed out on a
bathroom floor, or carried out of a bar by bouncers. On better nights you’d
find me telling a whole group of complete strangers my theory that oral sex was
the answer to World Peace. And on no morning-after had I ever woken up and
thought to myself, Wow, what a
respectable young woman I was last night. Nope. Never.
I’d
embarrassed myself on too many occasions to count, and I was hoping not to add
another at my own ‘Welcome Home’ party.
“Can you do
me a favor?” I asked Jake after my second martini. It was approaching nine, not
even dark yet and I was already buzzing.
“What’s
up?” he asked from behind the bar.
“Can you
please start making my drinks a little weaker? Or a lot weaker? It’s still
early, and I’d like to have some of my dignity left in the morning.”
“That’s not
going to be very fun for the rest of us,” he said with a straight face. “These
people didn’t come here tonight to welcome back their prim and proper
weak-drink-drinking friend. They came for the show they’ve learned to expect.”
It wasn’t
very nice, but it was funny. I was buzzed enough to laugh at my own expense. “I
don’t want to pull out all my tricks on the first night,” I replied. “I need to
save some for the next party.”
“No shit,
you’ve got tricks now? I should have charged a cover.”
I laughed
and shook my head at him. “Can you please just have my back tonight?”
He slid
another martini over to me. I took a sip of the noticeably weaker drink and
smiled. “Thank you.”
“No
problem. I’ve got my money on you keeping your bikini top on until at least
midnight. If we work on it together, we can split the pot.”
I sipped my
martini and hoped he was kidding.
I'm a wife, mom, waitress,
book nerd, Chapstick addict, and a really bad driver who still believes in
happy endings and can't walk in high heels. Writing is what I do when I'm
avoiding other things...like cleaning.
I once had big dreams of being a Hollywood
screenwriter. But then I met a boy and got distracted. Three years later we met another boy, this one
even cuter. The three of us are now living happily ever
after in the Detroit area. All Good Things is my second novel. And our house is
kind of a mess :)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GoodLifeList
PHOTO
OF JAKE NECKLACE IS ATTACHED IN EMAIL
Jodie
Beau is giving away an All Good Things “Jake” necklace PLUS signed paperbacks
of All Good Things and The Good Life to one winner.
There
will also be Kindle ebook sets of both books to two other winners.
All
prizes are open internationally.
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