5 Years Later by Jaxson Kidman and London Casey

​CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

Publication date: 04/25/2017
Cliffhanger: No

5 Years Later, despite having a great blurb and having been written by an author I’ve read and enjoyed in the past, didn’t work for me AT ALL. It’s basically the story of an alphahole jerkwad who disappears from a woman’s life just long enough for her to get her crap together, then comes back to wreck everything for her, over and over again. Rinse and repeat. I could end the review there, but let me elaborate on all the stuff I hated about the book: ​

Aidan, the “hero”
I use the term hero very, very loosely here. I don’t mind so much that Aidan has dependency issues and is a recovering addict. I could forgive that. But every time he comes back into Lily’s life, he ruins everything for her, never really apologizes, immediately jumps back into bed with her (while promising that “this time”, it’s forever), then abandons her without a goodbye for another 5 years. (He also insists on condomless sex, even though he’s been high and far from celibate while they were apart. Dick.) The last time he comes back, it’s with a kid in tow, and he refuses to give her any info about where he’s been or what he’s been doing for a LONG time after they start having sex again. He’s an ass. I hated everything about Aidan.

And after everything he puts Lily through, at the end, when he has one setback, his first instinct is to immediately go back to using. He isn’t even able to stop himself. It takes the help of his sponsor and Lily to get him to admit he’s being an idiot. So, what’s Aidan going to do when things don’t go his way in the future? From what I’ve seen in this book (including right up until the end), he’ll go back to drugs and probably leave Lily high and dry.  

Lily, the heroine
Lily is a wimp. Not only does she tolerate Aidan’s behavior, she encourages it by taking him back with open arms (and legs) whenever he reappears. She doesn’t ask too many questions, or expect an apology. A good heroine, in my opinion, would have kicked Aidan in the nuts the second time he popped back into her life, then gotten a restraining order against him. I also hated how Lily was so ready to burn her life to the ground whenever Aidan waltzed back through her door. Have some self-respect, girl!

The bouncing timeline
Keeping up with all the time jumps in this story was like trying to follow all the character names in Game of Thrones. It got tedious after a while.

For all the grammar Nazis out there, it’s probably worth mentioning that you’ll find lots of errors in this book. Missed words, misused words, punctuation errors, weirdly phrased stuff that doesn’t read anywhere close to right...these are all issues you’ll have to tolerate in order to finish this one.

Long-story-short, I hated the hero with a fiery passion and wanted the heroine to grow a spine so that I could fix her up with a better hero from another book. That is all.

Does this book contribute to or help crush the romance stigma?
It’s not really stigma-y, just annoying.

Other reading suggestions
I liked When I’m Gone by Jaxson Kidman. And if second chance romance is your jam, you’ll want to check out this “best of” list. Enjoy!

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