Review: Undeclared by Jen Frederick

I received this book for free from the Author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

For four years, Grace Sullivan wrote to a Marine she never met, and fell in love. But when his deployment ended, so did the letters. Ever since that day, Grace has been coasting, academically and emotionally. The one thing she' s decided? No way is Noah Jackson — or any man — ever going to break her heart again.

Noah has always known exactly what he wants out of life. Success. Stability. Control. That' s why he joined the Marines and that' s why he' s fighting his way — literally — through college. Now that he' s got the rest of his life on track, he has one last conquest: Grace Sullivan. But since he was the one who stopped writing, he knows that winning her back will be his biggest battle yet.

My thoughts…

I really liked this one. The plot was really interesting and I couldn’t help but be sucked in from the very first page. It kept my interest throughout the entire book. I kept turning page after page to see how things would end up. At one point the author broke my heart. *sob* I just couldn’t believe it. You know when things are going along fairly well and you are waiting for the other shoe to drop and then bam. Yeah, my heart broke. Luckily this being a romance novel where happily ever afters are the norm, my heart was able to be pieced back together and become whole again. 🙂

I liked both the main characters and the secondary characters. Grace and Noah were pen-pals during her four years of high school. Noah was overseas fighting the war and looked forward to Grace’s letters and care packages. They sort of developed a strong bond between them.

When Grace starts college and Noah has served his time as a Marine she thinks that they will finally get to meet each other in person. Only this is not what happens. Noah is sort of messed up when he returns and decides to take some time to get himself straightened out before contacting Grace. The way he handles the situation with Grace was wrong in my opinion, but I could sort of see why he did what he did.

Fast forward a couple of years and Noah shows up at the same college Grace is a student at. At first she is shocked. And of course she wants nothing to do with him since he broke her heart once before. Noah was persistent though. Which I was really happy about. I wanted things to work out for them. I thought they made a great couple.

At the beginning of each chapter you get to read one of Noah’s letters to Grace that he wrote while serving time over seas. I thought this added a nice touch to the story. It sort of gives the reader a little insight to how things were for him. Also, there is a small dog tag image above his written letters that again added a nice touch. 🙂

The sexual content wasn’t overly explicit, but it was pretty hot in nature. The buildup to it had me about ready to spontaneously combust. When they finally came together I felt like shouting FINALLY! 🙂

Up next is Unspoken which will be Bo’s book. I’m really looking forward to reading it. At first I thought there were only going to be two books, but have since learned that each guy is going to get his own story. Woot!

Overall, this was a great read for a debut novel. There really wasn’t anything that I didn’t like about it. I’m excited to dive into the next book.