Brother’s Keeper by Elizabeth Finn

3.5 stars

I really didn’t know how to rate Brother’s Keeper.

I was so conflicted.  Could I put this book down? No! Not a chance, I was hooked from start to finish.  Did I love this book?  I’m really not sure how I felt.  That sounds very vague I  know, so let me explain.

On the one hand this book had me utterly consumed but on the other hand there was a lot of eye rolling on my part throughout this book.  I also have to add that by the end of it I was over the physical scenes with Rowan and Logan.  Their relationship was lacking something for me which made me feel disconnected to the story in some way.

We meet Rowan, who lives in a trailer with her alcoholic father after the death of her mother.  She soon learns avoidance is the  only way to deal with her father’s drunken rages and finds warmth and safety with the family of her best friend Sara. They take Rowan in as one of their own and provide a safe haven for her whenever she needs it.

I really did empathise with Rowan.  She was dealt a cruel hand in life and I felt so sorry for her at what she had to deal with and at times my heart went out to her.

Rowan is also close to Sara’s brother Logan.   He knows her family offers Rowan the love and security that Rowan does not find at home. Even though Sara’s family have an idea that Rowan leads a far from the perfect life with her father, they are not aware the extent of her unhappiness and the cruelty she experiences  as she manages to keep a lot of her life hidden from those around her.

One night Logan answers a call of help from Rowan that begins a relationship between the two that soon turns passionate and all consuming.

Logan is attempting to hold back the extent of his feelings towards Rowan, which he doesn’t manage to do,  as she’s only 17, a virgin and his sister’s best friend plus his parents love her like a daughter.  All that aside, Logan also  has his life set out for himself, a path that he is not wanting willing to deviate from at all.

Logan has a job offer in Colorado with a very prestigious Law Firm that has been his dream and doesn’t want anything to interfere with that.  It’s what he’s worked towards for a long time and what he thought he wanted.

Logan is so torn in his feelings towards Rowan and you get to experience his confliction first hand with the story being told from alternating pov’s.  You are able to delve into the confusion he feels over his growing feelings for Rowan and his arguments for why he can’t explore their relationship further. His plan begins to waiver and his priorities change as he begins to feel the true depth of what Rowan means to him.

Rowan is a very mature 17 year old.  She has seen a lot and had an extremely hard and difficult life at the hands of her father and I understand that she was old for her years, but part of my issue with her character was her internal voice.  While I did like her character, she was strong and determined and did not want to be seen as a victim, I just didn’t feel her inner voice reflected her age.  In fact this is where some of my issues with the story came into play.  Yes, I can understand she is mature, but some of her internal dialogue just didn’t come across as a young girl, so it made it difficult at times to relate to her and I had to keep reminding myself that I was reading this through the eyes of a young girl.

The story is first person dual POV’s and it does lend well to the story to have both voices heard, though at times it was a little difficult to follow whose voice we were hearing.  There were a couple of times I had to back track to get the feel of exactly who was talking.

I’m a reader who likes a lot of dialogue between characters.  The dialogue enables me to be present, to feel certain scenes. There was a lot of internal monologue through this book and whilst it didn’t bother me too much, I’m considering  if this may have been the reason I didn’t feel the emotional connection between Logan and Rowan.  I experienced the physical side, oh yes, the sex is hot, but emotionally their relationship fell a bit short for me.

The epilogue was a nice conclusion to the story and I found I couldn’t put this book down.