Dragonfly by Leigh Talbert Moore

Dragonfly by Leigh Talbert Moore

Anna Sanders expected an anonymous (and uneventful) senior year until she crossed paths with rich-and-sexy Jack Kyser and his twin sister Lucy.

Pulling Anna into their extravagant lifestyle on the Gulf Coast, Lucy pushed her outside her comfort zone and Jack showed her feelings she never experienced...Until he mysteriously withdrew.

Anna turned to her internship at the city paper and to her old attraction for Julian, a handsome local artist and rising star, for distraction.  But both led to her discovery of a decades-old secret closely guarded by the twins' distant, single father.

It's a secret that could cost her the boy she loves and permanently damage all of their lives.

This book is angsty.  It has all the earmarks of books that I typically avoid--the pull you closer, push you away relationship that is based more on lust than any real knowledge of who each partner is as a person.  The cliche of the hero saving the heroine from his own damaged psyche.  The badly treated heroine walking in on the hero with his ex...And in this case, the poor (read: stupid) girl melts into his arms when he comes to apologize and when he tells her he will only hurt her again she says that is her choice to make even though she left town in order to wallow after the first incident...She really thinks she can handle more and/or worse?? and why would she want to?  She knows so little about him that nothing is really holding her to him except hormones.  

Even more infuriating, she has another guy who is interested in her.  A guy who has a plan for his future and is busting his butt to earn it--a guy that she admits she would have easily loved if not for Jack.  Crikey.  It's maddening.  Especially when Julian repeatedly is there for her when Jack lets her down.  And then, when she ignores his overtures and he makes moves towards another girls, Anna gets jealous over it.  I know Anna is only 17 but she often read younger to me.  At this point, I can very close to DNFing and deleting the book off my Kindle; instead I remembered it was series and went scoping for more info on goodreads.  What I read about later books in the series gave me enough hope to keep reading...While I don't usually do that, sometimes I just need to know (especially in potential love triangles).  

And I'm glad I gave the book, and especially Anna a second chance because she finally seemed to get that what she was doing wasn't working and that she might be missing out on the right guy by chasing the wrong one.  And she took her time to really know her mind and her heart...While also discovering a secret that could totally derail all of them.  And while she backtracks a couple of times (driving me crazy with her wishy-washy self), overall the writing was good enough that I couldn't completely abandon the book.  I don't think I will pursue the rest of the series as this book left me with too many mixed feelings.