Book Review: Find You In The Dark

Author: A. Meredith Walters
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Self
Released: October 10th 2012

Summary from Goodreads:
Maggie Young had the market on normal. Normal friends, normal parents, normal grades...normal life.
Until him.
Clayton Reed was running from his past and an army of personal demons that threatened to take him down. He never thought he had a chance at happiness.
Until her.
Maggie thought their love could overcome anything. Clay thought she was all he needed to fix his messy life.
That together, they could face the world.
But the darkness is always waiting.
Sometimes the greatest obstacle to true love is within yourself.

This was one heck of a roller coaster read! Normally I am a butterflies, sunshine and rainbows kind of girl and this book definitely wasn't any of those things but it didn't matter, I still loved it. Maggie and Clay's relationship, in a word, is dysfunctional and as an adult there were certain situations that were difficult to read about. But after I sat and thought about it (and remembered what a drama queen I was when I was in high school) I realized it was actually a fairly accurate portrayal of the intensity teenagers are capable of feeling.
I found myself torn between wanting Maggie to run to the hills just to get away from Clay and other times where I wanted her to stick around and love Clay despite all of his...uh....issues.
I used to work with troubled teens and I know how important it is for them to have someone there no matter what to offer stability, but at the same time what Clay was doing to Maggie was abuse. And my heart was broken for the both of them because neither one of them realized it.
This book was intense and hard to put down. It had some really funny parts, some really mushy-gushy parts, some really steamy parts and some "I want to slap you across your face" parts thrown in there as well.
You know I won't ever give away any spoilers but I will say this, while the ending definitely wasn't happy, I was content with the ending because I knew there really couldn't be any other way. I am definitely looking forward to reading more from Ms. Walters and seeing where she takes Maggie and Clay's journey next (because yes there is supposed to be a sequel!).

Favorite Quote: "I have learned that sometimes 'sorry' is not enough. Sometimes you actually have to change."
  
 I really liked this book and I would definitely recommend it to most people who enjoy this genre but especially those who don't require their stories to end in sunshine and rainbows. I think this is a story that will stick with readers for a long time after they've finished it.