Review: I Want It That Way

I WANT IT THAT WAY
2B Trilogy #1
Ann Aguirre
Contemporary New Adult
352 pages
Harlequing
Available August 26th
Source: BEA

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Nadia Conrad has big dreams, and she's determined to make them come true—for her parents' sake as well as her own. But between maintaining her college scholarship and working at the local day care to support herself, she barely has time to think, let alone date. Then she moves into a new apartment and meets the taciturn yet irresistible guy in 1B….

Daniel Tyler has grown up too fast. Becoming a single dad at twenty turned his life upside down—and brought him heartache he can't risk again. Now, as he raises his four-year-old son while balancing a full-time construction management job and night classes, a social life is out of the question. The last thing he wants is for four noisy students to move into the apartment upstairs. But one night, Nadia's and Ty's paths cross, and soon they can't stay away from each other.

The timing is all wrong—but love happens when it happens. And you can't know what you truly need until you stand to lose it.

MY THOUGHTS
I Want It That Way is everything there is to love about the New Adult genre with none of the overly familiar elements that make so many of this book’s contemporaries frustratingly repetitive. Over the top relationship drama is replaced with a believable obstacle for our couple to overcome, and we’re thankfully graced with two people who are mature and level-headed enough to both talk–and listen–to the other person on good days and bad. The romance between Nadia and Ty is one that feels beautifully genuine, the challenges they each face with school and life splashed across the pages, coating us in their accomplishments and struggles until we’re so invested in the outcome of their story that we can’t bring ourselves to set the book down before the last page is reached.

Nadia is gloriously real, someone who feels as though she could have easily lived down the hall from us at school, free of any kind of fictional exaggeration to make her more interesting to readers. She’s not running from a dark or sordid past and is free of trust issues courtesy of past relationships, instead she’s financially strapped but on a scholarship, determined to make her way through school but open to having fun while she’s at it. Despite her complete understanding that Ty doesn’t want a relationship because his first priority is his son, she stays endearingly calm and collected when affection turns into so much more, tucking her love for him away without any pity for herself or resentment toward Ty. Even as their romance reaches its breaking point, Nadia proves herself to be heads above the rest, nursing her hurt without doing anything stupid to deliberately hurt Ty before deciding to fight for what she wants.

Ty is as real as Nadia is, his romantic appeal stemming from his obvious love for his son and his desire to provide for him while working to make sure his own dreams come true as well. He’s tired, stressed, and on any given day in over his head, but we feel how every ache and pain he experiences is more than worth it when Sam smiles or laughs, and the caution he exercises with Nadia in order to protect Sam only serves to make us fall a little more in love with him. He doesn’t fight his feelings for Nadia or push her away, instead he makes it clear how much he wants her and a life with her even if it’s not a possibility for the two of them at that exact moment. His reaction to Nadia’s slight voyeurism kink is enough to make us break out a multitude of fans, waving frantically to reduce the blush in our cheeks as we root for their happily every after with every fiber of our being.

Overall, I Want it That Way is New Adult at its very best, Nadia and Ty on their own gorgeously layered and infinitely relatable, but they're also surrounded by an extraordinary cast of secondary characters in Nadia’s roommates. Up next is the romance between Nadia’s brother Rob and her best friend Lauren, and I couldn’t be more grateful that we have so short a wait in between books.

Rating: 4.5/5
 

Find Ann:

Website • Facebook • Twitter • Goodreads • Amazon

This book was sent to me by the author free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.