Addicted to You by Krista and Becca Ritchie

 

Description from Goodreads

She’s addicted to sex. He’s addicted to booze…the only way out is rock bottom.

No one would suspect shy Lily Calloway’s biggest secret. While everyone is dancing at college bars, Lily stays in the bathroom. To get laid. Her compulsion leads her to one-night stands, steamy hookups and events she shamefully regrets. The only person who knows her secret happens to have one of his own.

Loren Hale’s best friend is his bottle of bourbon. Lily comes at a close second. For three years, they’ve pretended to be in a real relationship, hiding their addictions from their families. They’ve mastered the art of concealing flasks and random guys that filter in and out of their apartment.

But as they sink beneath the weight of their addictions, they cling harder to their destructive relationship and wonder if a life together, for real, is better than a lie. Strangers and family begin to infiltrate their guarded lives, and with new challenges, they realize they may not just be addicted to alcohol and sex.

Their real vice may be each other.

I gave this book five out of five stars.

My thoughts:

I really enjoyed this book. I found it a compelling read and hard to put down. It was well paced and the plot always kept one interested in knowing what would happen next. It was not your average rich kid romance, with them coming from a position of entitlement, and I found that extremely refreshing.

This book deals with adult themes of addiction and ultimately this was a tale of addiction and love. The attempt to overcome an addiction for the sake of another, for love.

I thought that the authors’ ability to breathe life into their characters was excellent. I loved the two main characters, Loren (Lo), and Lily. They were fully rounded characters and I loved that they were complete, rather than just a vehicle for their addictions.

The progression of their relationship, from a fake one used as a means to hide their individual addictions of sex and alcohol, from other people, to a real relationship, and ultimately a desire to be better people for one another was really interestingly handled. The replacement of their separate addictions, with a new, joint addiction, each other, was a predictable outcome in light of their addictive personalities.

It was also fascinating to see how other people penetrated the closed circle of Lily and Lo. This inclusion of other people in their life, particularly having real friends that cared for them and didn’t care about their surnames, they had their own, in addition to reassessing their relationship with their families was revealing of the degree of growth that they experienced, both personally, and as a couple.

Actually fighting their addictions, rather than embracing them, and changing how they had interacted with one another after such a long time, was illuminating. It was a story of progression, progressing from a point where they had separate addictions that were just part of their lives, they were functioning, to one where they found something more important to live for. Each other.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in a romance with a difference. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of this book, although I did think that the truth of the identity of one of the supporting characters was rather mundane.

This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by Netgalley and the publisher.