Fictional Candy: Review: Deeper by Robin York

Title: Deeper
Series: Caroline & West, #1
Author: Robin York
Published: January 24, 2014 - Bantam
Format: Egalley, Edelweiss - Thank you!

When Caroline Piasecki’s ex-boyfriend posts their sex pictures on the Internet, it destroys her reputation as a nice college girl. Suddenly her once-promising future doesn’t look so bright. Caroline tries to make the pictures disappear, hoping time will bury her shame. Then a guy she barely knows rises to her defense and punches her ex to the ground.

West Leavitt is the last person Caroline needs in her life. Everyone knows he’s shady. Still, Caroline is drawn to his confidence and swagger—even after promising her dad she’ll keep her distance. On late, sleepless nights, Caroline starts wandering into the bakery where West works.

They hang out, they talk, they listen. Though Caroline and West tell each other they’re “just friends,” their feelings intensify until it becomes impossible to pretend. The more complicated her relationship with West gets, the harder Caroline has to struggle to discover what she wants for herself—and the easier it becomes to find the courage she needs to fight back against the people who would judge her.

When all seems lost, sometimes the only place to go is deeper.

“What if you go after the love of your life and it ruins you? What if you don’t, and you figure out you’re already ruined?”

Deeper by Robin York ruined me for a bit. When this book was done, I actually chucked my kindle across my desk. I was so mad!!! Robin York, aka Ruthie Knox, has done such a fabulous job weaving naiveté, youth, sex, lust, revenge, regret and love together, that when I finished this book I had to step away before I could even think about writing my review.

Caroline is a young girl who sees herself as a victim, of sorts. She trusted her ex with some cell phone sex pics… no, he took them before she could say no. Either way, when they broke up those pictures showed up all over the internet and in everyone’s mailbox. Caroline tried to erase them from the internet. She worked tirelessly. She had to see people make vulgar and insane comments about her online. And that’s the thing, a picture lasts forever. I admired her tenacity. I felt sorry for her because she put her faith in the wrong people. And I had a great big hope that she would recover from what that guy did, and her own hell she lived with.

“The problem with Caroline isn’t that I want her. The problem is that I want to help her, want to learn her, want to fix her, and I can’t do that. I can’t get caught up with her, or she’ll distract me and I’ll ruin everything.”

My hopes for her rested on a young guy named West. West… he is volcanic, both in beauty and in temper. He can’t help himself when it comes to Caroline. He is devoted, even though he doesn’t want to be. He is the quintessential bad boy, and he’s got sex on lock down. He and Caroline have only had a few encounters with each other until one day, fate throws them together.

This book takes you through everything. You get to see both Caroline’s and West’s point of view. These two have every reason in the world to not be together. But the heart wants what it wants, and when the fates step in, there is really little you can do. My heart broke time and again for each of these two individually, and it smashed to tiny little pieces for them together. West wants to help Caroline, Caroline spends a good amount of time just hiding from life. But she finds solace and peace when she is with West. Neither of them should be around each other. I seriously couldn’t read this book fast enough, and every page was something special.

"I wanted you from the minute I saw you, " he says. "I want you right now, and you can barely stand me. I can barely stand me, so I don't know why you put up with my shit, but even right now, when I hate myself you're pissed at me, I still want to push you down on the bed and take off your shirt and get inside you. Get deep inside you, and then deeper, until I'm so deep I don't even know what's me anymore and what's you."

There’s a lot that happens in this book, and it would be insane if I were to break it all down. On its base level it’s the story of the boy from the wrong side of the tracks meets the upper class suburban princess. But if that’s all you get from this book, then you haven’t even touched the surface. This book has a lot of layers. There are family and friends who all have a stake in the lives of West and Caroline. There is the ever present problem of the sexual pictures, making Caroline a bit neurotic at times. There is a severe lack of communication. And there is a burning desire that tears through both of them; long before either one is fully cognizant.

So do I recommend this book? Absolutely. Have I made a nuisance of myself to the publisher, trying to find out the inside track on the second book, Harder? Absolutely. Am I counting the days to the release of Harder? Absolutely. Do I still think about Deeper, Caroline and West?

Absolutely.