BOOK REVIEW: Loving Mr. Daniels by Brittainy C. Cherry

To Whom it May Concern,

It was easy to call us forbidden and harder to call us soulmates. Yet I believed we were both. Forbidden soulmates.

When I arrived to Edgewood, Wisconsin I didn’t plan to find him. I didn't plan to stumble into Joe's bar and have Daniel's music stir up my emotions. I had no clue that his voice would make my hurts forget their own sorrow. I had no idea that my happiness would remember its own bliss.

When I started senior year at my new school, I wasn’t prepared to call him Mr. Daniels, but sometimes life happens at the wrong time for all the right reasons.

Our love story wasn’t only about the physical connection.

It was about family. It was about loss. It was about being alive. It was silly. It was painful. It was mourning. It was laughter.

It was ours.

And for those reasons alone, I would never apologize for loving Mr. Daniels.

-Ashlyn Jennings

It's already typical for me not to expect anything when I try out an author’s book for the first time.  Even if Loving Mr. Daniels was recommended by someone whose taste in books I really trust, I still tried hard not to expect too much. But hell, this book just totally floored me. I am utterly in love with this story.

Ms. Brittainy Cherry’s writing prose is so refreshing, like a newly found breath of fresh air. I loved the way she told the tale, sweetly but very intelligently. She waved a huge amount of feelings towards me and had me stuck and noting her beautiful twists of words. I found myself quoting a lot of words...okay, fine. I quoted half of the word count of the book. When I really thought I've read all kinds of words in a book, Miss Brittainy showed me she held more.

Her characters are profoundly addicting and unique. They were perfectly broken people but to me they were a beautiful work of art. I loved that they were patterned from real people and were never romanticized. They pained hard, they cried hard, and faced the crap of life like real people. Ryan was my favourite secondary character. He made me cry so hard. His wit, his love, his humor, and the sunshine he brought despite the storm in him made me love the crap out of hm. 

            Beautiful.

            Breathtaking.

            Brilliant.

            Blue eyes.

Daniel Daniels has placed himself up to my top ten favourite heroes. He exudes an aura of an attractive kind of mystery, wit, and softness. When he spoke, you’d want to listen to every word and drown yourself in the ocean of his mind. In all honesty, I really thought I was sure I already knew what character he would turn out to be when I first encountered him. He was smart, into music, and handsome in the most subtly rugged, romeo-ish way. But my, Danny shocked my core when he showed me Mr. Daniels. And I loved him more.

I was one hundred percent Ashlyn Jennings.

And I was one hundred percent his.

           

            Ashlyn Jennings was a really interesting character. I loved exploring her. I loved and admired her strength and her weaknesses, her tears and her laughs, her love and her hate, her loyalty and her courage, her intelligence and her mistakes...everything. She was a really relatable character. Journeying with her in this story was affective and really influential. She touched my soul.

            Ashlyn: Do you know what I like about you so far?

            Daniel: What’s that?

            Ashlyn: Everything.

Ashlyn and Daniel had to be one of my favourite book couples. They weren’t an exact replica of a reader’s fantasy couple of perfection, power, fame, and sophistication. They were the exact opposite—imperfect, troubled, broken, hurt, real—but they rendered me with the kind of love that I never had in other books. I loved that they were imperfect but made everything feel perfect. Their love wasn’t based in mere attraction. It went into an insurmountable depth of real love and acceptance. They don’t just love, they repaired. They don’t just make each other happy, they give each other a form of contentment and an endless dance of true love.

This story has touched my heart and soul. It took my heart into a sing-song harmony of feelings; subtle, then a little sad, rising up into a higher note of tears, a refrain of interesting character engagement, to shouting choruses of unexpected events, and ending with a phenomenal, heart-melting bang.

If you think Shakespeare wasn’t sexy, this story will change your mind.

Promise, promise.