This was such a huge disappointment. This is supposed to be a book about Mateo Eden, who is an Eden sibling. The series is literally called "The Edens" and yet... the first ELEVEN CHAPTERS were all from Vera's point of view. We don't get anything from Mateo until chapter twelve. By then, I was 25% through the book. We heard about Mateo all through the previous five books, and I was so interested in his story. But we got essentially nothing. Also, we find out in the last book that he has a daughter, and I was so intrigued by how he would handle being a single parent through his daughter's life, particularly through the first few years of her life but WE DON'T EVEN GET TO SEE IT! It's all from Vera's point of view and then it's a few years later in the present when we see Mateo and his daughter. WHY? VERA IS NOT AN EDEN! Why did we just get the majority of HER story and not Mateo's? It just doesn't make sense. 

Another thing that bothered me is that when we DO get to Mateo's point of view, he basically says that the reason he is a better man now and not a manwhore who doesn't care about women is because he has a daughter now. Um, so you weren't a good guy before but now that you have a daughter, you are? Why did it take being a father to make you realize you treated women like shit?

I understand Vera was in love with Mateo for a long time and it was unrequited love but for the first 25% of the book, we hear over and over and OVER about how much she loves him but he doesn't give her the time of day. It was really getting annoying, and actually embarrassing and pathetic. Borderline creepy how obssessed she was with him. Then, when she does tell Mateo how she feels (sort of?), he all of the sudden "sees" her and is madly in love with her. He didn't notice her for years but NOW he's all about her? I don't buy it. It just seemed like an immediate shift with little to no thought. It didn't make any sense. 

There wasn't an exciting climax and no payoff to truly be worth taking up the first 25% to have Vera talk about how broken she is and how much she loves Mateo and he doesn't notice her. They didn't even really have chemistry. For Mateo, it was sort of just like, "Oh, here's Vera. She's pretty and she's good to my daughter, so I'll be with her then." We learned nothing about him, except he's a dad, he's a pilot and he wears brown boots with black belt. 

This was basically just unrequited love and a fuck ton of hiking. Like, we get it... you're hiking every single day. ENOUGH WITH THE HIKING! 

I still cannot believe Devney Perry wrote the masterpiece that is Juniper Hill and then every other book in the series was awful. How is this possible? I don't know but she did it.

Also... the thing that was REALLY WEIRD was at the end, Allie is 17 years old and she brings this 20 year old guy she's dating to a family party and NO ONE in the Eden family says anything?! No one thought, "Hey, that MAN is too old to be dating my TEENAGE DAUGHTER." ??? How did Devney Perry think this was okay?! I am appalled. Did anyone else catch this? Because my jaw literally dropped and I thought there's no way she wrote this BUT SHE DID. SO gross.