One of the best things about first love and your high school sweetheart is that when the relationship crashes and burns, as most tend to do, you generally get to walk away. Leave for college, move to a new apartment, start a new job. Sure, you'll be bitter for awhile and then you'll look back at it with rose-colored glasses later on, but right from the get-go, you generally get to leave. That helps. But imagine you couldn't get away from the boy who broke your heart? Imagine his face, his voice, is everywhere, and he's telling the world about you, over and over, every day?

Katie Hollis is a successful 30-something, but she still drops everything when her first boyfriend, Jake Sharpe, pays a visit to their hometown. Jake dumped Katie before the prom in Senior year, and went on to become an internationally-famous pop star. And his biggest hits? Are all about Katie.

This premise was what got me interested in reading "Dedication", co-authored by the women who wrote "The Nanny Diaries" (which I have not read). I can relate. No, my ex isn't a rock star, but anyone who has ever been broken up with has had the fantasy where we get to "make him regret his entire existence", like Katie has spent the past decade and more planning to do.

The book has a lot to recommend it. The structure is engaging: we switch back and forth from the present to the past,year by year, from sixth grade through twelfth, watching Katie and her best friends turn into teenagers and all that entails. We experience Jake the way Katie does, from the never-to-be-explained behavior of boys who say they're going to call and never do, just like real life, to the inexplicable discovery that he likes her back, despite how he's acted all this time, and through to the end of their relationship, which is as painful and unfair as we all have lived through. Juxtaposed with Katie in the present, in the past we learn pieces of her life, bit by bit, unfolding the hidden layers of it all -- Jake, her parents, school, and so on, in an engaging way.

Without giving away details, I suspect that it is the ending that throws some readers off from enjoying the book, though. Things suddenly get bumpy about four-fifths of the way through, and stay that way to the last page. While the resolution rings true, the way we get there is unsatisfactory, as is the abrupt, denouement-free ending. I felt as if there was, at one point, a different version of the last several chapters, one where the finale was the same but how we got there changed, and the authors made an unfortunate choice to scrap that for this. But even with that caveat, I did enjoy "Dedication", and felt that the intriguing promise of the premise was delivered in the final product. ( )

This book was very confusing for me to read. Mostly because of the flashbacks. Plus nothing was explained in detail and the book makes you figure things out for yourself. ( )

Kate has been in love with Jake Sharpe ever since their senior year of high school. Now, Jake is a famous musician and Kate decides that she wants to win his heart back. Kate must overcome the pain that came from Jake abruptly leaving. ( )

Kate Hollis is a 30 yr. old with a good job that keeps her happily busy, yet tired alot. She has made a good life for herself in Charleston, NC and is determined not to let her past overshadow or influence her future, but how can she when all she hears and sees is Jake Sharpe, the one person she has vowed revenge upon.
The call comes just before Christmas 2005, he has come back to their hometown, Cronton Falls, Vermont. He has become a huge rock star. The person that at one time was her world, her middle school crush and finally high school sweetheart. The person who also broke her heart and never seemed to look back. Kate is on a mission to make him feel as broken as she was 13 yrs. ago and to make him right the wrongs he made.
The journey we are taken on is one of first love, heartbreak, anger, revenge, disappointment culminating in resolution. Learning the hard way that you can not go back, but you can also not move forward until you fully confront the past.

Let me end by saying that this book seemed a bit "young" for this thirty-something. The language and sexual content went a bit further than needed. This book needs an R rating or maybe even an X. I am glad I got the chance to read it even though I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be. ( )

This book is SO good that I read it in 1 day!!! And well, that’s not me… ( )