Meant for You by Samantha Chase

The Basics:
Meant for You by Samantha Chase
Sourcebooks Casablanca
Book Five in The Montgomery Brothers series
Contemporary Romance
Published April 7, 2015
Source: Received via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Why I picked up this book:

I love stories about childhood friends falling in love once they've grown up (or at least, finally acting on it once they've grown up). 

Blurb:

She dares to dream...

Summer Montgomery wants to be taken seriously almost as much as she wants her brother's best friend, Ethan. But with a long resume of seemingly random career choices and a protective brother on watch, those things are nothing more than pipe dreams...

Does he dare to try?

Ethan Reed would like nothing more than to live by his own rules. Not wanting to disappoint his best friend Zach, or any of the Montgomerys, Ethan's had to push his long-denied feelings for Summer aside. But it only takes one night away from watchful eyes to make impossible dreams come true... 

My Thoughts:

I really wanted to like Meant for You because the story sounds so sweet. Summer's been pegged as the irresponsible, flighty sister in a family of men,. She's explored different career options, and is now emotionally recovering from the fallout of a bad relationship. Her family wants to protect her, all the while not really trusting her to have the maturity and know-how to really participate in the family company in a useful, high-level capacity.

Ethan is the best friend of Summer's older brother Zach - the one stuck with her while she licks her wounds and figures out the next step in her life. She's had a crush on him forever, and he's always tried to think of her firmly as off-limits, even though he thinks some pretty great things about her.

All of that sounds like a good set-up to me. Ethan's not the typical alpha hero - instead, he's more about not rocking the boat, a bit of a waffler when it comes to decision-making. I liked that.

Samantha, on the other hand, is presented as being both capable and flighty. She's impulsive and good-hearted. I had a hard time deciding whether I was supposed to see her as creative, adventurous, and brave for going after her dreams or if that was a little irresponsible and impetuous. I was glad to see her standing up for herself, but even in her own inner dialogue, she sometimes questioned or downplayed her resume and that was irksome.

Even more frustrating than Samantha's inconsistencies is the head-hopping that happens in this book. I'm all for giving us multiple limited third person perspectives, but jumping between two or three or more people's thoughts in a single scene is a huge problem for me. It's messy and jarring. I wish that the book had reined back on that a lot more.

Meant for You is big on meddling families. There's lots of people with lots of opinions about Ethan and Samantha and I wanted to tell them all to butt out. It's nice when people care, but nearly everyone treated Samantha like she was twelve, and it got to the point of being insulting.

Bottom line:

Meant for You is an okay book that was ruined for me by some technical things (such as head-hopping). If you're already a fan of the series, I can only imagine you'll be excited to see it continue. I don't think I'll be coming back for more (even with the obvious set-up in this book for the next one's relationship)

3.5 stars
For fans of contemporary romance, beta heroes, large and overly involved families, Alaska

But don't just take my word for it! I grabbed a few links to other blog reviews of Meant for You:

Romancing the Book 

Marienela

Sultry Steamy Reading