When 17-year-old Lucy Larson meets Jude Ryder, her life is turned perfectly upside down. Well, more so than it was already. Her mother is a workaholic who hasn’t had a real conversation with Lucy in years. Her father has checked out of his life and survives only to cook dinner every night. The family recently had to downsize majorly; selling their large house, moving to their former vacation home, and pulling Lucy out of her ritzy private high school right before her senior year. The one thing that pulls Lucy forward is her passion for dance. She is determined to make it into Juilliard on a scholarship so she can ditch her painful past and start an amazing future. She’s not looking for a boyfriend, much less a delinquent that could complicate her life further. But fate must have had other ideas.

Cue Jude Ryder. Lucy is immediately attracted to the cute bad boy and she thinks he’s attracted to her too. But when they actually meet, she’s not impressed. He opens the conversation by stating ‘”The name’s Jude Ryder … and I don’t do girlfriends, relationships, flowers, or regular phone calls. If that works for you, I think we could work out something special”’ (Williams 10). Not exactly the prince charming she imagined. But as Lucy feels an unfounded draw to Jude, will their pasts make having any type of a relationship impossible?

Teens who enjoy reading about forbidden love and classic good-girl-falls-for-bad-boy stories will love this book. With many unexpected twists, the story and characters really do draw you in, making this novel impossible to put down.