Easy - Tammara Webber

In the month of February, I ended up reading books that I never imagined I would read (Easy by Tammara Webber, being one of them).

Why didn't I want to read this book with glowing Goodreads reviews?
 Because I thought it was a romance novel judging by the cover. (Inserted below to justify my thinking so)

SPOILER ALERT!!! - It did turn out to be a Romance novel.

Now, coming to the book, it starts out as a conventional unrealistic romance novel. (I would like to clarify that this book is technically considered to be within the "Contemporary" and "New Adult" genre.) The main character, Jacquelyn enrols herself in her long-time boyfriend's college just to "be with him" (sacrificing her own dreams in the process). However, aforementioned ex-boyfriend, Kennedy, decides that he wants to sleep with other girls and doesn't want to be tied down to one girl. So he breaks up with Jacquelyn and justifies himself by saying -

"Look, everyone knows that one of the worst things a political candidate or elected representative can do is to become embroiled in some sexual scandal. I'm only human, Jackie, and if I have these desires to sow my wild oats or whatever and I repress it, I'll probably have the same desire later, even worse. But acting on it then would be a career-killer. I have no choice but to get it out of my system while I can do it without annihilating my future professional standing."

You can already tell that he'd make a great politician. Discretion is clearly his strong suit, after all.(Note the sarcasm)

 Jacquelyn's life takes a turn when a new guy enters in her life (who saves her from a possible sexual assault by a fellow college student, Buck). But, it turns out New Guy aka Lucas has secrets of his own. (Am I the only one who is tired of the mysterious guy with a troubled past trope?)

Anyway, coming to the only good part of the book - it heavily stresses on the importance of reporting sexual assaults and possibly that rape is never the fault of the victim. The book's heavy anti-victim blaming message is possibly the reason behind its popularity among readers. I acknowledge that it is an important message to put out there but, the book was problematic. And no amount of good message can erase that. 

First of all, it was unrealistic - from Jacquelyn's lack of reaction after being assaulted to the fact that Lucas is instantly obsessed with her even before they've had an interaction (there's literally a conversation between him and Jacquelyn where he reveals that he had wanted to "take her away" from her ex-boyfriend when he first met her because he was "inexplicably" drawn to her).

Then there was the issue of the characters lacking depth and the awkward timings of character backstory. The entire thing felt like it was a bait for the readers to pity Lucas. The author wanted you to sympathise with her main characters while, hating everyone else in the process. For example: In Jacquelyn's college, only a few people were genuinely nice. Everyone else, specially the fellow girls of her college, seemed to passionately hate Jacquelyn for no reason whatsoever. And this is honestly something I'm tired of seeing. Not to mention, the justifications that some of the characters gave for their actions irritated me.

So, in conclusion, I was not a huge fan of this book despite its content and message. It was an important message but I'd rather read something else with a similar message, to be very frank.