A review by weecha22
I Want You Back by Lorelei James

3.0

First of all, this book, even though it says it’s the first in a series, is not. There’s a whole different series with these characters, and having not read it, I was completely lost on why I was supposed to know these characters (and there’s a lot). I picked this up because it’s my favorite trope, but I was frustrated by the lack of an actual story beyond Jax wanting Lucy back. Lucy has no story beyond Jax. And the flashbacks felt clunk to me. This one deals with cheating, and while I do think the author does a good job of showing that Jax has changed and genuinely feels regret for his actions, it never explains why he cheated. He knew that Lucy had major trust issues related to cheating. He promised he’d be different. And then what? Things got hard so he decided to do the most awful thing he could to her (he says he knew she’d find out)? I didn’t understand at all. Especially because she was PREGNANT at the time. And then we’re told at some point, his alcoholism became a problem and he started telling lies to his family about Lucy and trying to fight her on support payments and custody. Not to mention he got an STD. I mean, I didn’t really understand how Lucy was able to forgive. She just suddenly was open to it and I couldn’t really see how. I did like how it portrayed the daughter as difficult and not the perfect little child kids usually are in books.