Begin Again (Again, #1) by Mona Kasten

Synopsis (via Goodreads): He makes the rules. She breaks them all.

A new start. It's the only thing keeping Allie Harper going, when she packs up her life and moves across the country to Woodshill, Oregon. She's about to start college, desperate to leave the ghosts of her past behind her. Even if that means never talking to her parents again.

Now the hard part - finding an apartment before classes start. Just when it seems she'll have to live out of her car, Allie visits one more place. It's beautiful. With one exception: can she stand being roommates with campus bad boy Kaden White? Sure, Kaden is sexy with his tattoos and careless attitude, but he's also an arrogant jerk. With nowhere else to go, Allie moves in.

The first thing Kaden does is make a set of rules. Either Allie obeys, or she's out:

1. Don't talk about your girl problems.
2. Keep your mouth shut if I bring someone home.
3. We will NEVER hook up.

Easy enough, thinks Allie. Who would want to get involved with a brute like Kaden? But the more she gets to know him, the more she sees beyond his gruff facade. He, too, is harboring some painful secrets. For Kaden and Allie, it gets harder and harder to ignore the sparks between them. And the lines between the rules start to blur-

Begin Again is a beautiful romance that shows us just how possible it is to start over. To find freedom in heartbreak and love in the most unlikely places. 

"At this moment I could not only imagine the freedom that I’d been longing for—I felt like I had achieved it, like it was filling me. The energy of life tingled through my body; I didn’t even feel my muscles ache anymore. A slight breeze tickled the ends of my hair. I was breathless."

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are my own. Also, the quote I used may have changed or been altered in some way, but I am quoting from what I received.

Begin Again was originally published in German, but I'm delighted they decided to translate it! The night I started this, I could not put it down. I kept telling myself "one more chapter," because you know how that is, but the story was on my mind even when I wasn't reading it. It wouldn't take long before I was engrossed in the pages again, housework be damned.

Obviously, we know Kaden's rules are doomed to fail, and it was so fun watching them crumble. He's a hypocrite when it comes to his rules, too. He even admits that he can break them when he wants to because they're his. Kaden has freely admitted to being an asshole from the beginning, but we can see how he uses that as a shield against the world. He has demons to deal with, but so does Allie.

Allie is forced to confront her problems a lot sooner than she would have liked because her mother is psychotic. If I were Allie, I would have disconnected my phone service long before arriving in Woodshill. She may have been her mother, but that woman was not motherly. I don't care how much money someone throws at you, your child should always come first. I can't even think about Allie's parents without throwing up in my mouth.

The scenery for this book is beautiful. I love it when Allie and Kaden go hiking (some of my favorite moments happen off the trail), and it makes me want to grab my boots and go climb a mountain. I feel like this is where the two of them really connected. There were no distractions, just them and nature.

I want to be best friends with the secondary characters! They were all so wonderful and such good people. Kaden and Allie both needed those friendships, and I hope to see more of these characters in the future.

I do have one tiny issue with this book... I didn't like how Kaden's past was revealed and explained. I feel like we were given bits and pieces of information throughout the book, but then we're smothered with it at the end. I would have enjoyed it more had it felt natural instead of rushed. Allie has to deal with her issues the entire book, but we only get a few chapters of Kaden being confronted with his.

Overall, it's a captivating story that I could not read fast enough!

Side note: I loved the tattoos and the music!