The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden by by Jessica Sorensen

About the book

The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden by Jessica Sorensen is a New Adult novel and the first in a series. The book was published in e-book format in the UK on 12^th December 2012.

Synopsis (Taken from Goodreads.com)

There are those who don’t get luck handed to them on a shiny platter, who end up in the wrong place at the wrong time, who don’t get saved.

Luck was not on Callie’s side the day of her twelfth birthday when everything was stolen from her. After it’s all over, she locks up her feelings and vows never to tell anyone what happened. Six years later her painful past consumes her life and most days it’s a struggle just to breathe.

For as long as Kayden can remember, suffering in silence was the only way to survive life. As long as he did what he was told, everything was okay. One night, after making a terrible mistake, it seems like his life might be over. Luck was on his side, though, when Callie coincidentally is in the right place at the right time and saves him.

Now he can’t stop thinking about the girl he saw at school, but never really knew. When he ends up at the same college as Callie, he does everything he can to try to get to know her. But Callie is reserved and closed off. The more he tries to be part of her life, the more he realizes Callie might need to be saved.

What I thought

This is another New Adult e-book which I managed to get really cheap at only 77p!

I loved the beginning of this book. Callie is forced to go and drag her brother out of a high school party and she really, really doesn’t want to. Callie is quite the shy girl and has kept to herself for such a long time and having to deal with a house full of people who have made fun of her for years scares the crap out of her. However, on the way into the house, Callie comes across Kayden being beaten up by his Dad and she saves him. Callie was seriously brave here because as Kayden says, everyone else would have probably walked away.

When Callie goes off to college early, to get away from everyone and everything, she is lucky to find such a good friend in Seth, he understands why she is the way she is. Callie really is broken and has a lot of problems when it comes to social situations, making her a bit strange and reluctant to do anything. However, Seth really brings Callie’s personality out, making her do things she wouldn’t normally. The friendship between these two characters was a wonderful thing to read and I loved when the two of them were together.

Kayden is just as broken as Callie but for different reasons. His Dad has been beating on him for years, which Callie has experienced first hand. When Kayden realises that he’s at the same college as Callie, he knows he needs to make it up to her for how she saved him. Kayden is such a wonderful character and his issues make him the person that he is. Although he seemed to be a bit of an ass in high school, getting away to college appears to have changed things and he knows he wants to be better.

The building tension between Callie and Kayden runs for a long way through the book but it was exciting to see each of them beginning to let go with each other. Their relationship is so beautifully written and heart-breaking at the same time. These are two people who definitely needed each other at this point in the lives and although it isn’t easy between them, they have something worth fighting for. Although a New Adult novel, it doesn’t have quite as much sex in it as some of the others I have read, mostly due to some of the issues dealt with throughout the book. The scenes there was though were wonderfully written and not as steamy or explicit as some others I have read.

The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden is a really difficult read at times due to the subject matter but it is so worth it. The story of Callie and Kayden is utterly heart-breaking and it made me want to hug them both. The ending has one of the biggest cliff-hangers I have read in a long time and now it makes me desperately want to read the sequel. Jessica Sorensen definitely knows how to shock her readers and make them want more.

I don’t think I’ve really done this book justice in this review but for me, it was absolutely perfect and I couldn’t put it down. It’s going to take some doing that beat this as my favourite book of the year so far.