Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn | Review

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.

Description from Goodreads:

Seventeen-year-old Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom, but only if the guy fulfils a specific criteria: he has to be a virgin. Mercedes lets the boys get their awkward, fumbling first times over with, and all she asks in return is that they give their girlfriends the perfect first time - the kind Mercedes never had herself. 

Keeping what goes on in her bedroom a secret has been easy - so far. Her absentee mother isn't home nearly enough to know about Mercedes' extracurricular activities, and her uber-religious best friend, Angela, won't even say the word "sex" until she gets married . But Mercedes doesn't bank on Angela's boyfriend finding out about her services and wanting a turn - or on Zach, who likes her for who she is instead of what she can do in bed.

When Mercedes' perfect system falls apart, she has to find a way to salvage her reputation and figure out where her heart really belongs in the process. Funny, smart, and true-to-life, Firsts is a one-of-a-kind Young Adult novel about growing up.

Mercy leads a life very different to mine, in fact her life is pretty much the opposite to mine. Her relationship with her mother is pretty much zero, whereas my mum and are stupid close and I tell her pretty much everything. And Mercy has a very different view on sex than I do, while I'm not about to go sprouting my views to you all, I will say that I would never want to sleep with someone who had a girlfriend, and I'm definitely more of a relationship girl than a 'Wednesday Friend'. For those of you who haven't read Firsts, you're probably wondering what the hell I'm going on about, well Mercy has a standing Wednesday lunchtime bedroom appointment with Zach, her 'Wednesday Friend'. I really liked Zach, he's after a relationship with Mercy, and he sticks around. And really, who doesn't like a guy who sticks around and tries to be a damn good friend, and perhaps even more?

Mercy justifies her de-virgining through creating perfect first times for the unknowing girlfriends, as she had as far from a perfect first time as possible. The details of Mercy's first time aren't revealed until very late on in the novel, but throughout small hints and clues are revealed, so I had a pretty good idea of what had happened. This may be annoying for some, because there wasn't really that much mystery once one or two hints had been made, but it didn't bother me too much.

I don't know about anyone else but I thought it was pretty obvious that Charlie was into Mercy, that Charlie was a creep and inappropriately hitting on Mercy, especially considering he's dating her best friend. In fact I got shushed quite a few times from my family due to my loud reactions. But in my defence, does verbally reacting to a book show engagement and enjoyment or what?! So I didn't like Charlie, and I wanted Mercy to catch on and not like or trust Charlie too, because then there would have been a lot less mess! Charlie was a complete tool and a really horrible guy, and he went ahead and did something awful, and he was probably the only character that I didn't like in the whole book, and seeing as he's meant to be disliked, I'd say well done Flynn.

Faye became the friend that Mercedes really needed through all the drama, she stood up for her and stayed by her, and I ended up really liking her. In fact part of me wanted the sexual tension and flirtation to mean more and become more. In my opinion that would have been a nice little twist to the book, the girl who takes boys virginities ends up with the beautiful and confident new girl.

Firsts is all about character growth and development, both of which are things that I saw Mercedes undergo through the novel, and don't we all just love a bit of character growth?! In my opinion Flynn created some very likeable characters, I ended up really caring about Mercy and I wanted to see her happy, and oh boy did I want to drag Angela away from the creep she called a boyfriend! 

I found Firsts to be a very enjoyable and quick read, I broke the Kindle back out for this book, and I'm glad that I did! 

Have you read Firsts? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

'Firsts' by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

4 Stars