WHEN WE MET

Four female college juniors share a house—and newly dramatic love lives—in this new-adult romance written by four separate authors in four distinct sections that focus on each woman's love story.

Misha, Indy, Courtney and Chloe are very different (but all breathtakingly gorgeous) young women living under one Michigan roof as they prepare for what they hope will be their very best year at college. They each have demons they're trying to transcend. Misha recently endured the humiliation of her neighbor crush–next-door leaking her sex tape; Indy is using reckless drinking, partying and hookups to help forget her longtime boyfriend's devastating infidelity; Courtney feels less than trustful toward men, particularly the jocks who frequent the sports bar where she waitresses; and Chloe craves escape from a tightly controlled life under her mother's nagging thumb. The women's individual struggles are just background noise for the crucial inner heartbeat of the book, however. That heartbeat, naturally, would be...boys. Specifically, four “[b]eautiful…commanding” college boys, Darryn, Kier, Dalton and Blake, all single, manly and preoccupied with “saving” the perfectly capable college women they fall for. The book’s four sections are told from the points of view of both members of each couple (for example: Part 1, “Behind Her Eyes,” is recounted in alternating chapters by Misha and Darryn), and the “male” chapters sometimes feel laughable in their attempts at casual bro-speak.

Though the book's four-protagonist, four-author concept keeps the book feeling fresh, each section suffers from repetitive word choices (if we never read the term "deepen the kiss" again, it will be too soon) and sometimes-rote plotlines that lean too heavily on gender stereotypes.