Review: Love and Chaos by Gemma Burgess

Rating: ★★★★★ stars

Date Published: February 25th, 2014

Synopsis: Wild child and secret romantic Angie wakes up in a hotel room with $3,000 and no memories of the night before. Her best friends aren’t talking to her, she can’t get a job in fashion, her parents are divorcing, and she’s about to turn twenty-three. And life is about to get much worse.

Brooklyn Girls: Love and Chaos continues the story of our five favorite grads sharing a brownstone and starting out in New York City through Angie’s eyes. On a journey from private jets and yacht parties to dirty subways and hipster bars via crazy storms, flash floods, and retail jobs from hell, Angie discovers who she is, what she wants, how she’s going to get it —and a crazy little thing called true love.

Meanwhile, her roommates lives are imploding, too. Coco’s self-medicating and self-loathing, Pia’s breaking up and cracking up, Madeleine’s finding her voice and Julia might—just might—have met someone she can actually date.

Brooklyn Girls is the hilarious, inspiring Gemma Burgess series every twenty-something has been waiting for that tells you that whatever you do, whatever mistakes you make, everything is going to be okay. All you need is a little luck, a little work, and your best friends.

What I Thought:

When I read the first book in this series, Brooklyn Girls, I fell in love with all the girls living in that brownstone in Brooklyn. Each girl has a different personality and each is facing issues that are different and unique to them yet similar to each other at the same time. I guess you can say many of the issues are quintessential to the 20s, like discovering what it is you want to do with your life and who you want to be. Heck, I'm a little over a month out of my 20s and I'm still trying to find the answers to those questions.

Angie came off as a total wild child in the first book and in Love and Chaos, the book focuses on her while also focusing on her room mates, Pia, Julia, Madeline, and Coco whom we met in the first book. If you're worried about not having read Brooklyn Girls before Love and Chaos, don't despair. While the characters are the same, the books can be read independently of each other as there is little to no mention of what happened in the first book.

I must say getting up close with Angie made a world of a difference for me. I was able to learn what molded her behavior and attitude. I appreciated seeing her view her own behavior and realize what was wrong and what she needed to do to change it. Angie may have seemed out of control, but I saw her as someone who was misguided and didn't know how to handle what was going on. Her solution to any sort of trouble/problem was to run away. Yes, Angie makes some poor choices. Who hasn't? I loved how she dealt with them afterwards. Not only did I feel as if I could relate to Angie, I wanted to be one of her confidants and just tell her she was on the right path and to be strong. It turns out she figured that out on her own.

Well before reading Love and Chaos or even Brooklyn Girls, I fell in love with Gemma Burgess's books. She's managed to continue her 5 star streak for me. I am beyond awed at how she was able to write a book with Angie as the main protagonist and yet somehow ensure that we were kept updated with what was going on in the lives of Julia, Madeline, Coco, Pia, and not feel shortchanged. I finished the book wondering, "Whose book is next and when will it be out?" but also ,"How does Gemma do it?". Kudos to her for such a great story. If you haven't read anything by her before, you are totally missing out. For all those who are looking for a great NA without lots of raunchiness but still a great story, here's your book. Now I'm off to my local book store to get a finished copy to add my collection of books by Gemma Burgess. See you there!

*eARC given by the author/publisher via netgalley for review. I received no compensation for this review. All my opinions are my own and so is the gushing. This book is awesome!*