From Goodreads: He was fifteen and she was seventeen.

When sophomore Ryan “The Kid” McPhearson makes the Varsity baseball team, he finds himself submersed into the life of upperclassmen, and falling in love with senior Brooke Bennet. To Ryan she’s his dream girl, perfect. Maybe to the outside world a two-year age difference doesn’t matter, but this is high school. Everything matters.

Ryan soon realizes Brooke’s life is not so perfect. He becomes her closest friend, her safe place to fall when she needs to escape. Ryan seems to be benched in the friend zone with no chance to bat.

Time is both a curse and a blessing. It ushers Brooke away to college, and Ryan into the arms of his first girlfriend. It alters Ryan from a kid to a high school graduate, ready to venture to college himself. But when Ryan sees Brooke again he realizes there are some things even time can’t touch.

Though much has changed, one question still remains. Will the things that mattered in high school always stand between them?

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While I absolutely adore Wendy Higgins’ Sweet Evil Series, I have to admit that I wasn’t as impressed with this contemporary novella.  I think part of the issue here is that this is in fact a novella, which gave me less time to connect with the characters as the events moved quickly—especially because it takes place over a few year span.  I also didn’t care much for Brooke.  While her intentions in the beginning of the novel are innocent enough, she soon begins hurting Ryan more often, and she seems to know exactly what she’s doing.  That, together with her constant bad decisions, one after another in terms of drink and boys, drove me insane, and truth be told, she wouldn’t have been a friend of mine in high school/college, so in that regard I also had a hard time connecting.

Ryan is a sweetie, and I definitely felt for him as he pined away for Brooke.  He’s the ultimate friend turned lover, and I was glad that he finally gets his “someday,” but the pain he went through to get there was devastating.  I would have been his other female friend who kept telling him to forget about Brooke, but hey, the heart is strange.  Three stars.

I purchased this novella from Amazon.