Book - ache

Do you ever get soo emotionally invested in a book you would rather read than be at a party? That you feel like the plot line is actually happening to you? Your gut clenches, you actually cry, you're head hurts and you're just as confused as the characters?  Yeah, me neither.  (That's a lie.)

I just read this book, Stealing Harper, it was on someone's pinterest and I read the synopsis and it was right up my alley, bad boy, good girl, love triangle, tattoos, etc... everything I love in a book.  What I didn't expect is my stomach to be in knots, tears to be flowing down my face and losing sleep over everything, but that's exactly what happened.  Apparently this is a follow up book to the first one, called "Taking Chances."  I had no idea and I probably should've read that first, but I didn't.  So instead, I found myself scouring blogs to find out if there was a sequel to Stealing Harper, if I would ever know what happened.  If they cliff hanger I was left on would ever be resolved.  Well, I finally found out that that was the sequel, that I had read them out of order.  So I downloaded the first one (yes, downloaded, sorry all you true blue paperback lovers) and I skipped through to the part where my book ended, you see, they were told from 2 different points of view.  The one I had read was from the point of view of the Bad Boy, which I loved, and probably why it was soo tormented.  But the first one was from the point of view of the good girl.  And so, it continues past the cliff hanger.

***SPOILER ALERT****

The cliff hanger; you don't know if Chase, the 'bad boy' lives or dies, and  you want him to live because he never seems to catch a break and everything is messed up and you want him to have his chance at a happy ending, even though he thinks he doesn't deserve it, he does.  So, I went back and read Taking Chances, at least the part that would coincide with the crash, and finding out if Chase dies or not.  And he DOES!  He freakin' DIES!!!.  I can't believe it.  I wanted to throw up.  I fell in love with this character and his story soo hard that it physically affected me.  Forget my emotions, those are shot to hell.  I'm heartbroken over fictional characters that don't exist, how sad is that.  But I was invested and I'm soo disappointed.  I'm so mad that Brandon gets the girl after all that.  I'm so mad that Chase dies, I'm reeling.

It's too close to real life, and I think that's probably why it's such a good book.  But also soo terribly heart breaking.  The ending makes me soo soo sad and I think it's because that's what happens in real life, you don't always get that redeeming ending.  You don't always get to explain yourself and you don't know when life will be over, sometimes it happens in a split second and you don't get a chance to take back all your mistakes or unresolved issues and you have to live with that.  And I think it's that combination that makes this book amazing and terribly sad all that same time.