I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review in any way.
Revenge is sweet, just like candy.
Candy Seaborne knows she's badass. She takes after her father, an assassin and possibly a spy, although he won't admit to either. She idolises him. Her dream is to follow in his footsteps. But first, she has to finish high school. Biding her time, waiting for real life to begin, Candy craves drama and isn't above manufacturing some. If you're a classmate who wronged her or a boyfriend who cheated, watch you back. She's no pushover, and revenge may be her favourite pastime.
Jonah Bryson is the senior class heartthrob who breaks all the stereotypes. He's a jock, but he isn't the typical player. He's moody and antisocial. No girl has gotten anywhere with him since his last girlfriend broke his heart.
Candy sees Jonah as a challenge and the perfect distraction. But she may be in over her head because unlike everyone else, Jonah isn't buying her tough act. He sees the lost, lonely girl inside. He sees too much.When he looks at her that way, she wants to let her guard down and be vulnerable. But that's the last thing she should do because her father's world is spilling over into hers, and life is about to get real much sooner than Candy expected.
To begin with I wasn't sure if I liked Candy all that much, she struck me as extremely immature, perhaps down to her character or the the writing I'm not sure. I therefore resigned myself to reading Like Candy for the tour, with no real expectations.
How wrong I was. Sure, Like Candy started off at bit immature, with a lot of focus on rather juvenile things, but as the book got going I started liking Candy a lot more, and I really started to like where Debra Doxer was taking the story.
There's a mystery surrounding Candy's father, there's a general awareness that he does bad things for a living, the synopsis openly states that he's an assassin and possibly a spy. This ambiguous nature to his job is maintained throughout, building the mystery as to just what is happening and why people keep trying to break into their house.
I definitely got sucked into the story, I got through it really quickly because I just wanted to know what the hell was going on. So obviously I had my own little ideas about what was going to happen and who was behind it, and can I just say CALLED IT! Before you go thinking that Like Candy is predictable, I wouldn't go that far. I didn't guess everything, in fact I was left quite shocked when one rather huge revelation was unravelling. So definitely don't be put off if you dislike predictable books, hopefully you won't figure it all out and Like Candy can surprise you.
Candy is blown away by Jonah's good looks as soon as she lays eyes on him, but then his personality puts her off. There was clearly chemistry between the two but it didn't feel fake, forced or rushed into, so basically what I'm saying is there was no insta-love. In fact as far as I'm concerned their relationship still needs to develop a bit more before the L word can be dropped. I liked the dynamic of Jonah and Candy together, he was really sweet and thoughtful, and I could see why she was enamoured.
I think my initial feelings towards this book were probably due to the difference in age between myself and the high school characters, I'm sure that if I'd have read it when I was still in high school myself I'd have loved it from the get go. But as it was I needed a little bit of warming up.
Something I was not prepared for in Like Candy was the cliffhanger, that's right. One minute I was happily reading away and the next, there were no more electronic pages left. It only means one thing, I'm going to have to wait for Sweet Liar to come out so I can find out just what happens!
About The Author
Debra Doxer was born in Boston, and other than a few lost years in the California sunshine, she has always resided in the Boston area. She writes fiction, technical software documents, illegible scribbles on sticky notes, and texts that get mangled by AutoCorrect. She writes for a living, and she writes for fun. When her daughter asks her when she'll run out of words, her response always is, "when I run out of time."
