Finding It

Cora Cormack
Kelsey Summers is looking for love in all the wrong places.
Spending a few months travelling around Europe – with no parents, no responsibilities and a no limit credit card – Kelsey’s having the time of her life.
But when she completely embarrasses herself in front of the hottest guy she’s ever seen, she soon realises there’s more to life than the next party.
What she doesn’t realise is that although she’s on a journey to find herself, she will end up finding The One…
Finding It is the third and final full length book in Cormack’s Losing it series*, set around a group of friends as they complete university and take the next steps in to their adult lives.
While each of these books stand on their own, and can be read in any order without any major spoilers, I really would recommend that you reading the entire series in order. Not only so that you can fully experience each characters development, but also that you don’t deprive yourself of a moment of Cormack’s book-hugging romance, smirk inducing wit, laugh out loud humour, or her ability to induce empathetic cringing.
Losing it focused on Bliss as she approached the end of her education and wrestled with which route she wanted her career to take (oh and she met and fell in love with a gorgeous English bloke, by the name of Garrick). Faking it found Cade adjusting to life off of campus (oh and he met and fell in love with a feisty, tattooed chick by the name of Max). In Finding It, Kelsey has decided to put off the inevitable, predictable life and her parents stifling expectations. Preferring to travel around Europe, to live in the now, to collect life experiences Kelsey is hunting down that elusive something more – and if she can do it at the expense and irritation of her father, so much the better!
When we were introduced to Kelsey back in Faking It (book 1) she was simply Bliss’s vivacious, if slightly abrasive friend. A gorgeous, sexually confident party girl, determined to aid Bliss in the losing of her virginity; fun but shallow.
While my confidence in Cormack’s ability to create likeable, relatable characters was boosted by the experience of reading Faking It (book 2) and falling for Cade, for whom I’d felt nothing but irritation in book one, I began Finding It, unsure if I could gel with Kelsey as the main protagonist.
Kelsey is a firecracker with an entertaining voice, a fun loving nature, and a warts and all honesty, which was immediately entertaining and likeable. Unlike the open books of Bliss and Cade, Kelsey’s is a much harder character to get to know, with a darker back-story than Cormack’s earlier protagonists. My commitment to Kelsey’s story however, was rewarded with a greater depth of character and deeper emotional involvement.
Gorgeous, mysterious, and strong, with an artist eye and a poet’s heart, not to mention a gentlemanly moral code despite the undeniable chemistry – Jackson Hunt is Cormack’s scummiest, most swoon worthy book boyfriend yet.
Like Kelsey, Hunt has secrets and a painful history. Unlike a lot of “damaged” love interests, meeting Kelsey is not the turning point in his recovery from his past. In fact that is one of my favorite elements of the book. Both characters have already taken steps to address their histories, and their dissatisfactions with their current lives prior to meeting. While Kelsey and Hunt’s relationship is one of facilitated healing and mutual support, it is not co-dependent. They are not reliant on each other to be whole.
AND… Finding It is a road trip book. I LOVE road trip books – protagonists discovering themselves while they discover new cities – Kelsey travels around Europe the way I wish I had, with an enviable fearlessness. Although I doubt I would have had the stamina, or liver capacity to keep up with all of Kelsey’s antics! She uninhibitedly meets new and exciting people, visits those out of the way (known only to the locals) places and dives (with only a little persuasion) in to unique experiences and once in a life time opportunities. She personifies a life is short/dance like no one is watching philosophy.
Cora’s Cormack’s books simply get better and better. I feel no hesitation in adding her to my list of authors whose work equates to an automatic pre-order. I cannot wait to read All Lined Up, the first installment in her new Rusk University series. Set in Texas and involving “three swoon-worthy football boys” its May 2014 release cannot come soon enough!
Verdict: Cormack has saved the best for last
* The series also includes two e-novellas; Keeping Her (Bliss and Garrick ) and Seeking Her (Kelsey and Hunt) due for publication early 2014 and available for preorder
Reviewed by Caroline