Review: Emancipating Andie by Priscilla Glenn

Title: Emancipating Andie
Author: Priscilla Glenn
Published: March 1st 2013
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Ever since the one time Andie Weber threw caution to the wind - and paid the price for it - she’s learned that it’s safer and smarter to live life playing by the rules. Now she’s got a great apartment, a steady job, and a wonderful boyfriend in Colin; he’s sweet, stable, and essentially perfect – except maybe for the fact that his best friend is Chase.
Chase McGuire lives his carefree, unstructured life strictly for himself. Dripping sarcasm and oozing wit, he refuses to censor his feelings or opinions for anyone, making no apologies for either and wearing his abrasiveness like a badge of honor. No one has ever gotten under Andie’s skin the way Chase does – and vice versa.
So when Andie and Chase find themselves forced to take a two-day road trip together, they are already dreading an inevitable all-out war. But as the trip progresses, and the undeniable friction that has always defined their relationship slowly begins to wear away their preconceived notions of each other, Andie and Chase discover they both have a lot to learn about life, courage, happiness, and the age-old battle between logic and love.

Back to You was one of my favorite reads of 2012 and I cannot praise that book enough. It was thoroughly enjoyable. Priscilla Glenn has quickly become one of my favorite contemporary authors. Her books are filled with emotion and heartbreak in addition to life, love and laughter.

“Life is much more enjoyable when you're surrounded by people who just accept you for you.” 

The story. Andie is an adorable MC who happens to be in a serious relationship with a very decent guy. She meets his privileged friends at a house party and gets locked up in a wine cellar with the worst guy she can possibly imagine – Chase McGuire. He infuriates her to her bones. Andie expects to never see him again. Until.. They all attend to a wedding and she has to drive him there. Expect a catastrophe to happen.

My thoughts. You could seriously cut the tension with a knife in this one. Tension in romance, suspense of what’s next to come, the little things that one does not dare to talk about but what occupy one’s mind. It was intense! However, even though the first part was so so so good, it got a little boring for me at some point. The last 20% were fantastic though. Emancipating Andie was full on temptation, butterflies; freedom to breathe, love and live.

As for the characters, I absolutely loved Chase as a love interest. It’s not that I didn’t like Colin, I sure did, but he didn’t push Andie to reach for her dreams nor did he push her to open up about her dreams. When one’s in a relationship, it should be easy to talk about these things, but in this case Andie didn’t dare to speak about her true wishes to Colin. She was embarrassed and that speaks volume. Chase, however, got her to talk and through that they formed a connection deeper than Andie and her boyfriend. The love triangle was inevitable and I liked how there was no cheating in it. We knew it'd get messy with these three, but Andie pulled her big-girl-pants on and did what she had to do in order to make this right – good for her.

I had a tough time with rating this one. I gave Back to You 5 stars since it was one of my favorite books I have ever read. It’s hard to live up to that. Since it didn’t, I can’t give Emancipating Andie 5 stars. Also, the fact that I was a little bored throughout a part of it in the middle, I had to lower the rating another notch. Still, I cannot wait for something else by Priscilla and her writing in general was absolutely marvelous and beautiful. She is definitely an author to explore.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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