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4.5/5

Audrey Bell sold me on The Fall of January Cooper. I read her first novel, Love Show, and I can't even say how much I loved it. I would recommend it to fans of new adult everywhere. So I knew that I couldn't pass up The Fall of January Cooper. And when Audrey had me tearing up within the first two chapters of the book, I knew I was dealing with a powerful story. The romance aspect was a little tame compared to a lot of new adult, but the emotional slow burn reluctant romance between January and Christian was fantastic.

January starts the story out as a rich harvard student. Everyone painted her out to being this huge B**ch, but that wasn't exactly what I saw. I saw someone who was stuck up, yes, but not really a complete mean girl. I know that is what her friends described her as, but to be honest that only made me believe it less, because her friends were all beyond awful. I would hate to be associated with their group. Even if you disagree with me, and you do think she is a raging B, you will feel for this girl. There is no way that you can't. Her world crumbles around her overnight. Her and Christian have that in common. Everything in their lives  took an awful turn in a split second.

Christian and his brother were both college hockey players. They got into a fatal car crash as they were arguing about Sam feeling inadequate to Christian, who is the star player. Sam died and Christian had a career ending injury. (and no I didn't spoil anything, this all happens within the first two chapters) It was so heartbreaking. I hate that his brother died while they were fighting, and it was such a guilt inducing fight too. The story moves forward by having January and Christian meet at and working at the bar in town. I loved watching the two of them interact with each other. It was different from each of their perspectives. For Christian, January got under his skin and was really the only new person in his life that could get him outside of his head. He didn't really interact with anyone, and the few that he did were very surface. I loved watching January edge her way under his skin. Even if they were bickering for most of the time. It was cute.

And January was ostracized when news of her father got out. I would say I wanted to punch her father, but what he did, didn't even shock me. I know that is kind of awful and jaded, but I have seen it happen more frequently than I would care to. (Think Joe Guidice from real housewives of new jersey.) These two are put through the ringer. The story is told in dual narrative between January and Christian, and each of them is really battling their own demons. I really didn't have much to complain about with this book, other than the fact that I wanted more story. I just wanted the story to keep going. I thought for about 60% of the book, the story was pretty evenly split between January and Christian's issued and I loved that about the story. But from there on, the main focus was on January and Christian helping her, which I loved, but I kept wanting to go back to Christian's family and see more of him and their issues dealt with.

I also wanted a little bit more of a steamy romance with them. I felt like we were tiptoeing around that for a lot of the book, and the slow burn romance was great. I loved the story, but when we finally did get to the romance, there was so little of the story left. I want another book about them. Maybe focusing on Christian's injury. Please Audrey! Give me more January and Christian. I love them!

 This review was originally posted on Book Briefs