Learning to Live: An Enemy to Lovers Ugly Cry by Kira Adams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read Learning to Live in two days, and I’m not an uncommonly fast reader. I just couldn’t put the book down. I’m also the type that prefers going into a book completely blind. I really hate spoilers, so most of the time I’ll only go into it with only the title, author, cover art and genre. When I picked up Learning to Live, I knew that it was a romance novel, so I assumed it was about a woman “learning to live” after escaping an abusive relationship. Instead, the story I got was a wildly different YA, coming of age. I loved every moment of it and spent the last 30% of the novel holding back tears. There’s a quote from the main character, Ciera, that’s very fitting: “I love how romance authors can make you feel every emotion in their books, and you feel invested in the characters. By the end of the story, you feel as if you know them on some kind of personal level, and you mourn the loss of them when it’s over.” In this way, Kira Adams gets everything right. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a rich, compelling story about learning to live and how to love. My only nitpick is that there should have been a warning for graphic bullying, nudity and for being sexually explicit. I do not believe that any of these elements were gratuitous or unnecessary to the plot, but it’s important to respect the boundaries and expectations of readers. There is a disclaimer in the online synopsis, but not in the book itself.

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