[Book Review] I Found You By Jane Lark & Bethesda Coffee Beginnings Blend

Title: I Found You
Series: Starting Out #1
Author: Jane Lark
Publisher: HarperImpulse
Publication date: December 12th 2013
Page Count: 360 pages
Age Rating: New Adult And Up (explicit sexual scenes, language, violence)
How I got my hot little hands on it: Received a copy to review
Publisher’s page: I Found You

On a cold winter night, Rachel and Jason’s lives collide on Manhattan Bridge. She’s running from life, he’s running toward it. But compassion urges him to help her.

His offer of a place to stay leads to friendship and trouble. There’s his fiancée back home in Oregon and a family who just don’t trust this girl from the wrong side of the tracks.

But when the connection between them is so electric, so right… everyone else must be wrong. And as the snow begins to settle on the Hudson, there’s nothing but the possibility of what could be – of this, right here, right now. Them.

My Review

Jason is a small fish in a big pond, struggling to find his place in New York away from his family, friends, and fiancée back home. Rachel is a city girl who lives fast and parties hard. One fateful night, Rachel is just… over it. Over life. Thankfully, Jason finds her on the Manhattan Bridge before any permanent harm is done. Rachel needs help. Jason is adrift in the big city and needs an anchor. Luckily, they found each other.

From the moment Jason and Rachel meet there’s an attraction. And they fight against it, for like, a whole week. One of the reasons I just couldn’t be sympathetic towards Jason early on is half the things he said or thought when comparing Rachel to his fiancée Lindy came off as justification for straying (seriously go to this list of excuses people make for infidelities and see how many Jason ticks off – and I’m supposed to believe he’s such a “good guy”?) Also, deciding in your head you’re going to break up with someone is not the same as actually breaking up with them, so pursuing someone before that is not something a good guy does – another black mark against Jason in my book.

Rachel came off as waaay too dependent. She needs a man in her life taking care of her – has since she was fifteen and ran away from home. Straight off a hellish relationship with one man, Rachel thanks her lucky stars that the man who found her is a “good guy” and then proceeds to need him desperately. This was one of the only romance novels I’ve read where I wish the main characters had remained just friends, at least for a little longer. Jumping into a sexual, co-dependent relationship just didn’t seem healthy to me.

By this point, it probably seems like I didn’t like this book, but it’s actually quite the opposite. While I didn’t agree with a lot of the characters’ actions, they were real and raw, and so very human. I Found You is a love story of two imperfect people getting together imperfectly and, to tell you the truth, even though I fought against it tooth and nail, their love won me over in the end, so bravo for them.

I recommend this book to romance readers who want a romance that’s not easy and not always too pretty, but ends up feeling real and important and lasting.

Jason and Rachel both were in need of a new start, a new beginning, and they found what they were looking for in each other. I recommend Bethesda Coffee Beginnings Blend – it’s got a lightly sweet, berry flavor to it that makes it perfect for the dawn of a new day and ushering in a happy, uplifting feeling that accompanies the start of something new, something ripe with possibilities and potential.