3.5 (liked it a lot)

I wanted to read One Moment in Time because I enjoyed reading Heat of the Moment-- Lyla's story. We saw that their friendship fell apart, and some of the pieces of the puzzle through Lyla's eyes. Quinn sounds like a character that I can relate to especially because she has been dependable and predictable, but she wants to do something crazy for graduation. I also liked Lyla's character development so I hoped for more of the same with Quinn as well as the readability of the first book.

I was also wanting to get Quinn's side of the story why the friendship fell apart. Because she was portrayed as pretty rude in the first, we get to see inside her mind, how much she regretted breaking Lyla's trust, how she tried over and over to explain and try to fix the friendship before giving up. But that when she realizes she is roomies with them, her heart yearns for them, their true friendship before everything went to crap between them. The times where she blurted out mean or rude or seemingly unthoughtful things, she was dealing with hard stuff, and wishing that she had the friendships restored and friends she could really talk to and trust.

Quinn thought she had her whole life planned out, she's one of the top in the class and her family has a tradition of going to Stanford. But when she is denied admission, she feels like a disappointment and that all of her hard work wasn't enough to get her her dream school. It is the catalyst for the trip, things going not at all as planned. From internships, to re-evaluating the friends she's had since the blow up with Aven and Lyla. And the email from her freshman year keeps coming again and again to her inbox. Before graduation she promised to do something crazy. How is that for ambiguous. But it really does challenge her because all of her carefully laid plans hasn't gotten the results she'd hoped for.

The guy handing out flyers to a party at a club on the beach gives her an excuse to try new things. She's never really been clubbing, her new friends are the rule breakers, and have tried pot, drinking, etc, but Quinn just never thought it was for her. But now she wants to try dancing, maybe some drinking, and enjoy the attention from a hot beach boy.

Like the first, it is exploration of new things, figuring out who they are, making mistakes along the way, and learning from honestly some stupid decisions. It is fast paced, lighter in nature than a lot of the contemporaries that I read, so a change of pace.

I did like that although most of the book takes place on their senior beach trip, that there was involvement from her family. She was really worried about disappointing them since Stanford is the family legacy. But we get to see conversations with her older brother Neal. We also get the sense of their academic family nature, that debates are their way of communicating. Quinn has been living under their expectations, and I appreciate that she began to try to realize what she wanted for herself vs what she had always went along with. As an adult I can see some of the things her parents were trying to do, they were doing out of love, but they just weren't seeing that Quinn could really want something different.

The romance was sweet and of course its instant attraction, and they connected and took things on a physical level. So it was insta-love. But I did like Abram, how he asked good questions, he was very perceptive, he listened without judging or jumping to conclusions. I like that Quinn did look deep inside and try to decide if things with him were just reactionary to the emails, the promise her younger self made to do something crazy.

I liked that we got to see a beginning of the reparation to their friendship and the promise of more in the next book from Aven's point of view. I can't wait because I like the sound of her character, and I want to see the mess untangled and hopefully some forgiveness granted and old wounds healed. Because they even after all this time, have their history together, and they were the true and deep friends.

I liked where Quinn's story left off though it was kind of open ended. She did do a lot of growing, and she is figuring out what she wants for her life outside the expectations and pressure. I like that there is hope that things can continue to develop with her and Abram, and I do hope for an update on him in Aven's story.

Bottom Line: Good summery read with a romance I did enjoy and nice character development. ( )