Last year, I got in touch with the New Adult Romance genre because one of my bestest friends loves them dearly, and since we share a very similiar reading taste in terms of Fantasy, she gifted me the first three books of Mona Kasten's Again series. I immediately devoured the books, discovered this genre as one to flee to, and while I'm not reading many books of it, I knew I had to pick up Anabelle's the moment she announced it - which was shortly after I found this new obsession.

The Away series is build up similiarly to all the other New Adult romance books I've read or seen around. We will get a total of three books, each one focusing on a different couple while the characters remain connected. In this first installement, the protagonist Lia introduced us to the life and circle of friends in Berlin.

I always appreciate it when the main character of the first book is as new to the situation, and has to get to know the people as much as the readers do. What I also enjoyed was the setting. Usually, I find myself in fictional places in the US, despite the fact that the authors are German. This time, the story is set in Berlin. And while I hadn't been able to see lots of it two years ago when I visited, it very quickly became a city I was fascinated with. To be back there was a pleasure for me.

However, we didn't only see Berlin through the eyes of Lia who found her refugee in the city after a disastrous night ruined everything in the town she lived, but we also get to know it through Noah's point of view, who is Lia's love interest. I must admit, I love multiple POVs, and was intrigued to see this love story unfold from both POVs as I saw how great it worked before in other New Adult books. This time, however, I felt it took away too much of the tension that could've happened between the two main characters. This was also not my only issue with the dual perspective. While the readers, even when in Lia's head, never get a good glimpse of what happened in her past, we got way too much details of Noah's. Which also quickly got revealed in every conversation these two had. There was never once a moment, I felt like tension was able to be build. As much as I want to slap characters in other books for not saying something sooner (and this was a big message in this book), I always appreciated that the tragic backstory led up to incredible tension. Which didn't really work here. The only character I became a bit interested with was Noah's brother, who kept to himself. Generally, the side characters felt more interesting than the two protagonists, and I wasn't really able to get emotionally invested in their love. Which is a pity, since I like to read these books for the emotional rollercoaster they offer.

Overall though, it was a good book because the story was executed and well, and I liked Anabelle Stehl's writing, and the issues she's tackling in this book such as slutshaming, sexual assault, harrasment. But it wasn't the heart stopper I wished it would be.

And while I picked up the book as the sequel got released just a recently, I think I will take a break before I dive into Fade Away since I fear I will have similiar issues. However, this doesn't mean I won't read it, because I am very interested in Kyra's story, and hope that whatever problem I had with the connection between Lia and Noah is resolved with the next pairing.