Seize Within Reach Authored By Jessica Stevens Digital Copy

Made it to about pg,and gave up. Dialogue felt stiff and formal, Plot seemed nonsensical. Never given any background info for the main protagonists to make me care, Xan. Lila. One is dead and one wishes for death, Will they reunite before it's too late

This book quickly drew me in, The alternating viewpoints helped move the story along, Much of the book focused on supernatural/paranormal in the "lives" of multiple characters in this book, It's truly the crux of the Xan and Lila's story,

If readers like books with paranormal elements and storyline then I recommend reading Within Reach,

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley from the publisher for my honest review, Within Reach is a story about soul mates, love, death and the decision of letting go, Xan and Lila are soul mates and completely in love, However, Xan is murdered and his soul is trapped in a realm where he has to prove to Lila that he is still there.
There is someone trying to pull Lila away from Xan in order to have a chance with her, Xan has to continue fighting and looks for help to show Lila that he is not completely gone, This book is full of suspense and you will be rooting for Xan and Lila and booing someone else throughout the story.
It is heartbreaking and sad because Lila not only has lost Xan, but also something she had a true passion for: dancing.
It is also very sad from Xan's point of view because he sees Lila suffering without being able to help her.
The ending is really interesting and keeps you wondering until the very last sentence!!

I received a copy of this book for an honest review.
I received this an an ARC from NetGalley, It took me a really long time to get into this book actually I never really did, It was really confusing going back between Xan who was in limbo, dead but not gone and his girlfriend Lily being alive and him trying to get her attention while he's dead and she can't see him.
The whole story was kind of odd with Lily living alone at ageon a boat, Xan had a confidant Wes who was supposedly guiding him in getting back to Lily but I really did not understand what his deal was or the whole thing about how Lily and Xan had already hadlives together.
The whole story was just a little too much for me, They obviously loved each other a lot but Lily had some issues, like being anorexic which wasn't taken too seriously by anyone, and no parents around.
. . I did like the ending kind of leaving us guessing as to if they were alive or dead but TOGETHER at least, however getting there was too painstakingly long.
Xan seemed like a decent guy, Jason was a psycho obviously which I saw from like pageso his behavior at the end didn't surprise me at all.
Crazy story. I am pretty imaginative but I guess not enough to be a fan of this book, This book is super good! I have been taking this book to the sauna for the last several months, It was a really hard book to finish, Hopefully, I can finish my sauna book without it falling apart, I really liked the premise of the book, but I wish it was better written, The author made "true love" into a joke, If the couples really love each other that much, they could not have done some of the things, They have already lived five lives together, but did not learn anything from them, Also, the ending was confusing,

.out ofstars
Received a free copy from BookSparks I just couldn't with this book, It was taking too much of my energy to follow the choppiness from afterlife/in limbo with the current present.
I wanted to like this book, The first half held my interest and left me feeling Xan and Lilas pain, From there it just feel apart for me, I started skipping a lot of the backstory I felt wasn't needed, I loved Wes but soon found he wasn't integral to the story, I'd say rework the second half to match the depth of the first, Ending fell short for me, Just kind of fizzled.
Confusion and boredom stuck in a book, Very hard one to read without feeling the weight of wasted time, As part of the BookSparksYA Summer Reading, I was provided with this book, Within Reach: A Novel by Jessica Stevens.
This book isn't what I would consider a "deep" book, but it had an interesting storyline, It was a cross between a love story, a mystery, and maybe even a paranormal book,

The main characters areyear old Xander Hemlock, and his soulmate/girlfriend, Lila Walker, The writer provides us with all the information we need in the first couple of pages and we learn about their relationship.
It's a very nice love story that's shared from the main characters' point of view separately, Sometimes I find that alternating viewpoints are distracting or hard to follow, but in this instance, it worked out perfectly and filled us in on the story as a whole.


Within Reach takes readers through the experience of the two soulmates refusing to let go of each other, even if one of them is dead.
While Xander didn't plan to die, he's somehow trapped in this other "realm" a spiritual plane of sorts and he hasdays to convince his girlfriend, Lila that he isn't dead.
Xan does everything he can to be certain that he and Lila's souls are still connected and that they will be together forever.


The story got a little too "hocus pocus" for me, but that might be due to

my black and white thought process.
Perhaps if you are one of those panoramic view kind of thinkers, this might be a book for you, but for me, it was just not believable.
Maybe I'm just too old for this young adult book after all, Within Reach received a ton of good reviews, so don't let my narrow minded thinking stop you from checking it out though.


I received a complimentary paperback copy of this book from the publishers and BookSparks as part of theYoung Adult Summer Reading Challenge YASummerReads in exchange for this post, which is my honest review and unbiased opinion.


Ok, so I did not totally see the ending coming, I liked how it ended with a bit of a cliffhanger, The story had a nice flow to it, I was able to read it without any real stumbling blocks, The main reason why I can't say that I am in love with this book is because although I did feel the strong connection between Xan and Lila, I did not experience the love worth going to the ends of the Earth for.
I was craving this reading this book, It was like me the reader had to be assured of this factor at the end of every chapter, Yet, there was a few other love interest that came into the picture for Lila and I could not picture anyone else with her but Xan.
For example one of the guys was Jason, At first I thought he was a good friend but as the story went on, he quickly got on my nerves and I found him annoying.
So much that when he could come into the picture I would quickly skim over his parts of the conversation.
As far as soulmates and a ghost story, this is not a bad one, It is actually one of the better stories I have read in a while, I am in love with the concept of souls and angels however, I am not in love with this book because of how the premise was pulled off.


To spoil the first chapter, Lila and Xan are perfect soul mates, Which is all fine and dandy except that their love feels entirely artificial, I get that if they have true love they don't need to have supporting evidence behind their love, but that didn't make me understand their love.
It was baselessit had been love at first sight so there was no trust or common experiences built up,

The premise went a little bit too far and was hard to understand, I felt like the first few chapters were the author explaining how the world worked but at that point I wasn't at all invested in that world and I didn't want to read a complicated backstory.
Even later in the book I didn't really understand certain details, things that seemed included more for the purpose of moving the plot forward.


Having said that, Wes was my favourite character and I was disappointed that instead of hearing a lot about him he turned more into someone to move the plot forward also and to encourage certain events to happen.


I wasn't too fond of Xan, but I really abhorred Lila, Maybe I'm heartless since she was dealing with a lot, but she was the epitome of a weak female character needing saving from herself and needing to have a big male protector around at all times to keep herself whole.
She was a ballet dancer, which was intriguing, but got in some car accident I think Details were never really given.
that resulted in her giving up her dream, But for some reason she gets a second chance It's complicated and I didn't understand why,

I also didn't buy the friendship between Lila and Jason, I mean, maybe she does have that complex and needs a male protector, But I'm with Xanthough I could understand why she'd let him continue to hurt her, I don't understand why she saw him in such a golden light.
And he also didn't seem quite insane, Irrational and jealous, yes, but to the extent that he'd commit certain actions Meh, Speaking of which, whatever was the 'obstacle'

I wanted this one to be really good, but it fell short of its potential.


I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review,
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