Bastard: Book Review

Book: Bastard
Author: J. L. Perry
Genre: Romance, New Adult, High School, Contemporary, Young Adult, Drama
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Carter Reynolds is a bastard, and that’s all he’s ever known. That, and being there for his mom. Growing up with little to no family, he appreciated her a lot more, and knew she deserved more than she asked for, so when she brings Fuckwit home to introduce to Carter, he puts on a smile and doesn’t ruin it for her.

Now they’re married and he has to move in with a man who is only putting up with him because that’s what came with marrying his mom – stand up guy, right? I hate asshole stepparents.

Carter already knows that this set up is temporary. He’s going to wait until he’s old enough to get his ass out of there, and then he’s gone. His plan seems fairly simple until it’s move in day and he’s face to face with Indiana, the beautiful girl next door who’s going to make him come undone. He knows that she’s going to create a whirlwind of trouble, and decides right away that he needs to keep her as far away from him as possible.

Again, seems easy enough for him, right? Wrong again.

Ross, Indi’s father, connects with Carter in a way that no man has, ever. He treats Carter like a human, instead of a mistake, and it effects Carter in ways he can’t describe.

Ross and Indi haven’t had the greatest past either. Losing her mom and his wife to cancer hasn’t been an easy thing to deal with, even after 6 years. Cancer is horrendous in any of its shapes and sizes. It’s a heart breaking disease and basically one of the few if not only things that does not discriminate. This sticks with Carter, and makes his mission to make Indiana’s life a living hell so much harder because now all he wants to do is protect her.

They end up forming this friendship and then becoming a bit more intimate as the story progresses, until Indi asks if he could be her first. Which he agrees to after a little convincing, and then he decides he needs to go.

TO SAY I WAS ANNOYED WOULD BE AN UNDERSTATEMENT. I loved how this story was going. It could’ve had a few tweaks in the way it was flowing and I had an issue with the characters at some points (which I’ll talk about after) but overall I saw it had a lot of promise to it. So when he was getting close to Indi I was getting happier and happier – and then he LEAVES. I hate when books do this. It puts a bad taste in my mouth with the character and it is beyond frustrating.

Carter leaves for five solid years, and in that time he gets his life together. He’s got an income, and a place to stay, and he’s happy. But there’s a part of his life that is missing and he’s about to get it back when he suddenly has to return home after hearing his dumb stepfather passed away. Indi at this point has moved on and has been dating Mark for almost a year. When Carter returns home and acts like he did nothing wrong I wanted to punch him.

I didn’t find it funny or cute that he squeezed the sponge on her, it just pissed me off. Carter was an egotistical idiot for a solid 40% of this book and it was unbearable when he got that way. But then again so are most guys, so I pushed it aside and let myself continue reading.

I liked that he didn’t completely expect Indi to have waited for him. He was respectful in that sense. Mark was stupid too and proposed as soon as he saw a threat in his relationship with Indi, so he left almost as quickly as he arrived in the story. See ya never bud. Not spoiling that breakup scene, you need to enjoy it in all its glory.

Indi has been getting headaches during the next little bit and they get progressively worse. Carter and Ross team up and force her into a doctor’s appointment, where she finds out that she has a small brain tumor. My heart honestly broke for this family. Especially for her dad, who is such a good man in Bastard. J. L. Perry had great character development in her book. It was easy and Carter didn’t have to deal with episodes of freaking out and backing out of his relationship with Indi. He had a bit of growing up to do and that was it.

So even though he bugged me, I had to give him that. I enjoyed his relationship with Indi and when he wasn’t annoying me, he was making me swoon with the way he talked to Indi. I don’t want to spoil anything else though so we’re going to skip over a bit but I need to express my frustration with this last scene.

Carter and Indi have a very active sex life. Which Perry is very steamy with and I LOVED that about her writing. Absolutely loved it. Towards the end of the book, Indi finds out that she’s pregnant and Carter FLIPS. I get it, I do. He was an illegitimate child and didn’t want a child of his to be risked to have the same childhood that he had to live through. So I understand why he’d panic a bit. But then he says “WE HAVE TO GET MARRIED” which is basically the most unromantic thing you can do at that time. It literally is just like “well we’re screwed so we might as well get married”. DUMB. I was so MAD. But Indi had the right idea and thought he was insane, just like I did. The whole time I’m saying “Thank God. Good girl.” But then she feels bad and thinks about it and basically says “Why not?” to the whole proposal and I just wanted to shake everyone in this story.

Honestly I can’t describe how mad it made me.

Overall I enjoyed reading this book, but there were a lot of things that I didn’t agree with. I do think that it’s just a personal preference and that people might feel differently about it, but I have to be honest and say that although I did like reading it, I won’t be giving it a second go. I will be looking at other work of J. L. Perry’s, for sure. I didn’t think her writing was bad, I just thought certain character decisions and plot points needed some revising.