Review: Weightless (Kandi Steiner)

Weightless
Author: Kandi Steiner
Publication Date: June 16, 2016
Publisher: Kandi Steiner
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary Romance, Romantic Suspense, Fiction

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Synopsis:

I remember the lights.

I remember I wanted to photograph them, the way the red and blue splashed across his cold, emotionless face. But I knew even if my feet could move from the place where they had cemented themselves to the ground and I could run for my camera, I wouldn’t be able to capture that moment.

I had trusted him, I had loved him, and even though my body had changed that summer, he’d made sure to help me hold on to who I was inside, regardless of how the exterior altered.

But then everything changed.

He stole my innocence. He scarred my heart. He took everything I thought I knew about my life and fast-pitched it out the window, shattering the glass that held my world together in the process.

I remember the lights.

The passionate, desperate, hot strikes of red. The harsh, cruel, icy bolts of blue.

They symbolized everything I endured that summer.

And everything I would never face again.

Kandi Steiner is an author who is newer to me. I’ve read and liked a couple of her books and have wanted to read more. I decided to give Weightless a try because I was intrigued by the blurb. I liked it, but there were several things that bugged me.

Let me start with what I liked. Natalie was a character that reminded me a bit of myself in/at the end of high school. She saw herself as imperfect and not worthy of the people she loved. Natalie was overweight and bigger than the other girls. She had just been dumped and saw losing weight as the way to win back her man. Natalie put in the effort to be a healthier version of herself for someone else. I wish I could say I haven’t been in those shoes, but I have. While I didn’t love every decision she made, I loved how much she grew and became more comfortable in her own skin. That was the best part of this book — her journey.

Now, I’m going to rant a little bit. I wasn’t a big fan of most of the other characters. Mason and Shay made me pretty mad. Mason because I’ve had ex-boyfriends like him. He didn’t want to be with Natalie, but he kept her hanging on by a thread. He made her feel like she wasn’t someone to love the way she was, and that sucked. He sucked. I hated him. Shay was just an insecure mean girl. I wish Natalie could have seen that from the beginning.

Rhodes I was a little wishy washy over. The dude was good for Natalie’s self-esteem, but he had some major issues. I couldn’t get past his extracurricular jobs and how Natalie was able to kind of look past it. That part of the story was a big turn off for me. It made me not want to keep reading. I did end up liking him in the end, though.

I did like the mystery surrounding Rhodes’ twin sister, but I felt it could have been more of a focus and a little more fleshed out. Her being missing was mentioned here and there, but it didn’t become a big focus until right before the end.

Basically, there was a lot of good stuff in this book. I just didn’t love it all.