4.75 Stars
Ezra Johnson’s leg injury has hindered his confidence and kept him from being one of the “cool kids” in high school. Kayla Reynolds doesn’t fit the “popular” mold either, but she makes the best of it.
Wow, this story has a little bit of everything. I swooned a little, awed a little, and fanned myself plenty. Then there was a bit of suspense and action that kicked in, and my heart picked up a faster beat, and I might have fought back a few tears with one of the characters too. But I laughed as well. Not as much as I did with Dropout, but Jeff knew just the moment to lighten the mood. But I’m getting ahead of myself so backing up…
Ezra is such a sweetie! He’s so richly developed in the opening chapters, and my heart broke a little for him. There’s no doubt he’s totally a good guy. (And I don’t even think I was biased in his favor for being a punk music fan.)
“She deserved better than getting groped by a hornball in public. Romance and shit.”
Kayla is just what he needs. She had a good head on her shoulders, wasn’t self conscious, and so not a quitter. Also major points for featuring not just a heroine with diversity in her ethnic makeup but also with the positive presentation of her same-sex parents who clearly contributed to Kayla being the strong, mature, good-natured person she was.
This is a fabulous young love story. All their firsts together were super hot! It just goes to show that it’s not about the quantities of partners but the quality of the exchange between the hero and the heroine. Plus they had good communication. We need more couples like this as role models in the romance market.
“Our agreement to be honest had created the most delicious dirty talk.”
In fact, there were pleasingly many examples of positive messages and good advice to be found here.
“People are constantly changing, and either you evolve together or grow apart.”
As well as some big brotherly guidance from my favorite dropout:
“Don’t ever look for dating advice on the internet. Sex stuff? Yeah, go to town on that shit.”
Told via Ezra and Kayla’s alternating first person POV, Outcast is sweet and sexy. I applaud the way Ezra and Kayla, both characters who were far from cookie-cutter, stayed focused on each other, avoiding unnecessary drama and angst. That’s very refreshing not just in the romance world, but especially so in the new adult subgenre. The character development here is solid and the romantic factor stellar alongside an engaging story about learning who you are, being strong where it counts, and growing.
There’s also many likable secondary characters (two legs and four) who gave the story a feel-good quality. I’ll close with some profound words from the sexy James Peabody Johnson:
“The wooing doesn’t end once you’ve got the girl; then you have to keep her.”
Free in Kindle Unlimited
~Outcast Excerpt~
In all my fourteen years, she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. She was a new student, and from the teacher’s brief announcement I learned she was originally from Cleveland. When Mr. Marks asked her to stand in front of the
class and introduce herself, her hands anxiously twisted together as she quietly let out the name I’d say in my head thousands of times over the next several years.
She was a tiny thing in a gray T-shirt, skinny jeans, and Chucks. Skin the color of coffee with a healthy dose of cream, light green eyes, full lips, and her hair was red. Not fiery-red—a deep auburn that reminded me of my favorite kind of sunset.
The color of the wild ringlets seemed out of place with her caramel skin, and it was like all her features had been put together with a bunch of mismatched pieces.
The unique combination was stunning.
Hushed whispers filled the classroom. I wasn’t the only one studying the new girl.
Heyworth, Ohio wasn’t the most diverse town, and Kayla’s distinct characteristics made her stand out like a candle in the dark.
Awkwardly shifting from one foot to the other, she sent a pleading look to our teacher.
“You can take a seat,” he told her, and she shuffled to the empty desk in the front row, just diagonal from me.
Obviously uncomfortable, she quickly glanced around before looking down at her clasped hands.
It was hard enough coming to a new town, but freshman year started two weeks ago. Everyone had already gotten time to get acquainted and, truth be told, most of us had been in the same grade since kindergarten.
And now here she was, unfamiliar and different.
The kind of pretty that made hearts hurt with longing or jealousy. Longing for those who wanted to be with her, and jealousy for the ones who wanted to be her.
Both could bring out a darkness we all had somewhere deep inside.
I was in the former category but instead of letting it bring me down, I felt my heart lift a little. Usually school was hell for me, but the thought of seeing her every day made it a little more bearable.
The buzz around us continued as our peers blatantly discussed the most interesting thing to happen in our grade for a long time. I didn’t hear all of what they said, but caught the words “Carrot Top” and “Chia Pet.”
Why did people have to be such dicks? I should’ve known it wouldn’t take long for them to pounce.
Suddenly, I wanted to tell everyone to stop gawking and mind their own fucking business.
Anne’s blond hair almost smacked me in the face as she whipped her head toward the new girl.
“So, what are you?” Leaning to the right, she giggled as she pulled at a strand of Kayla’s hair. “Like, are you Hispanic or something?”
I narrowed my eyes at the rude girl in front of me.
“Um, I don’t know,” Kayla responded, squirming away from the hand petting her head. “I was adopted.”
“I heard she has two dads,” Abby, Anne’s best friend, whispered loudly from somewhere behind me. “Gay dads.”
Snickering broke out among the class. Kayla’s delicate hands balled into fists until her knuckles turned white.
Fury ignited in my chest.
I’d never stood up for anyone before, not even myself. I wasn’t witty in the heat of the moment. I always thought of the best comebacks hours after it would’ve been useful. I didn’t know the first thing about defending someone.
But I couldn’t do nothing.
Just as I started to stand—with zero plan in place—a heavy hand landed on my left thigh and my leg buckled. I dropped back in my seat with a grunt as pain shot through my knee.
“What do you think you’re doing, Slug?” AJ sneered.
I bristled at the awful nickname. Not slug as in slugger, a baseball champ. Slug like the fat, slimy, slow-moving lumps that came out after too much rain.
“Uh—uh—uh,” he mocked with a laugh. Then his tone turned deceptively kind as his hand left my throbbing leg. “Hey, you know what you should do?”
Instead of a response, I gave him a skeptical glare.
There was one word for AJ Nelson: bully. Okay, there were a lot of words for him, but none of them were nice.
“Blush,” he barked out the command, and my cheeks flared against my own will. I knew if I looked in the mirror, I’d see a bright red flush all over my face.
The worst part about being made fun of wasn’t the hit to my self-esteem. It wasn’t feeling unloved or unpopular. It wasn’t even knowing so many of my peers stood by and watched it happen, silent and unwilling to intervene.
It was the humiliation of being put in my place. The degradation of being constantly reminded that my body betrayed me. That I wasn’t in control; they were. And people like AJ took every opportunity to let me know it.
Embarrassed, I dipped my head so no one would see, but it was too late. The new girl had rotated in her seat, looking over her shoulder at me with so much empathy, it only made the heat in my face worse.
She offered a timid, yet brave smile. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“You can call him Slug,” AJ supplied, and she gave him a fierce scowl.
Before I could form a response, a booming voice came from the back of the classroom.
“Yo, Kayla. Come sit next to me.”
I turned to see Gavin, the star linebacker for our football team. Dude was a beast. Freshmen never got put on the varsity team, but the coach had made an exception for the 6’4”, 210-pound giant. He was a nice guy, though. Soft-spoken and polite. He mostly kept to himself, so it was unusual for him to make such an outburst.
Mr. Marks cleared his throat. “That’s not Kayla’s assigned seat, Gavin.”
He gave the teacher a hard stare. “It is now.”
Kayla’s wide eyes bounced back and forth between the two until Mr. Marks waved his hand in permission.
After gathering her books, she trudged to the back row. Gavin gave a gentlemanly bow before pulling out her seat. The frown on her face was replaced with a grin, and a bolt of jealousy shot through me because I couldn’t be the one to protect her.
Even if AJ hadn’t been in my way, I would’ve fumbled over my words. I wasn’t intimidating. I wasn’t commanding.
I was Ezra Johnson, the cripple.
And that was why a girl like Kayla Reynolds would never be interested in a guy like me.
Her gaze briefly met mine before Gavin snagged her attention away. Tipping his head toward her, he whispered something I couldn’t hear, and she giggled.
“Guess we know who’s getting some from the new girl,” AJ remarked crudely, earning a few laughs.
And there was nothing I could do about it. If I told him to shut up, he’d just remind me how powerless I was.
My chest burned with anger as I opened my brand-new sketchbook to the first page and started to draw.
As Mr. Marks droned on about American history, my pencil moved over the paper. I didn’t need to look at my subject to get the details right; the image of her was etched into my mind.
Her heart-shaped face. The slight upturn of her nose. Plump lips. Corkscrew curls.
After I was satisfied with the rough outline of her beautiful features, I wrote the first of many letters she’d never see.
Today is the best and worst day of my life. The best, because I found out love at first sight really does exist. The worst,
because I had to watch someone else be your hero.
