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RedditI just finished reading another booktok recommendation which means I’m now writing a The Words book review. I’ve had The Words by A. Jade on my TBR for awhile now and I actually intended on reading it in July but moved it up.
“Don’t let your insecurities overpower that which makes your soul come alive. Otherwise, you’ll walk this earth never feeling whole…and that’s no way to live.”
A. Jade, The Words
This book is a rock star enemies to lovers romance with sexually explicit scenes, drug use, and alcohol among other triggers. As usual I will try to keep spoilers to a minimum however there may still be a few small spoilers in this post.
Trigger Warnings
Since we don’t always get trigger warnings on books I like to give trigger warnings in my reviews. This can help people avoid certain triggers that could hurt their mental well being.
Possible Triggers in this book are:
- Alcohol
- Alcoholism
- Bullying
- Car Accident
- Child Abuse
- Child Death
- Death
- Dementia
- Depression
- Drugs
- Eating Disorder
- Fatphobia
- Hospitalization
- Profanity
- Sexually Explicit Scenes
For a list of the triggers I look for you can check out this link here. This may or may not be a complete list of triggers for this book, I do my best to make sure I mark anything that could be a potential trigger but I may accidentally miss triggers.
The Words Synopsis
Lennon Michael is the daughter of a song writer and bullied for her weight. A few weeks out from graduation she is recruited to help tutor Phoenix Walker, the bad boy of the school. She wasn’t expecting a friendship and more to come from this experience, he was her sun. That is until he burned her and betrayed her.
Years later he’s a rock star on tour who’s getting into trouble with the rock star lifestyle. She’s recruited again to help Phoenix little does the recruiter know she’s out for revenge. The problem is he’s still the sun and he could easily burn her again.
In The Words, A. Jade has given us a contemporary spicy second chance romance that will tug at your heart strings. I laughed, I shed a tear or two, and I fell in love with these characters. I am looking forward to hopefully getting more stories from this author about these characters.
The Words Reading Experience
Right off the bat we dive into the world of a soon to graduate high school thick girl who deals with everyday bullying but continuously holds her head high, at least until she gets home where no one can see her. We see her struggles and how that bullying affected her later in life too.
We also meet our bad boy rock star before he makes it big. We fall in love with him as we learn about his struggles and the abuse he’s had to deal with at home.
This book takes us on a roller coaster of highs and lows and we get sucked into the lives of some very well written characters. We cheer on our heroine, fall for the bad boy, and embrace all the characters like family.
The book is 672 pages so it took me a couple of days to read which turned out to be about 9-10 hours total I think. If you’ve read any of my previous reviews you know I love thick books because I like a story to last for a bit.
The Words Book Review
Lennon is amazing. I like that she is a thick character and while she lost some weight what she really did was work towards having a healthy relationship with food and learning to love her body. It wasn’t about being a size two but about loving her body and treating it with respect.
Lennon is always a loyal and loving character but she will take absolutely no shit from anyone. She will stand up for herself when she’s wronged while not ever becoming cruel in her revenge. Regardless of what Phoenix put her through, she still helps him and doesn’t use his grief or pain against him.
Phoenix is your typical bad boy persona but we find out so much more about him. He deals with grief, pain, guilt and past abuses in an unhealthy way. However, like Lennon, he sees her for who she truly is, loves her as she is, and will do anything to try to fix what he broke.
The supporting characters are amazing, I love Skylar, Quinn, and Storm. There is such a fantastic dynamic between the entire group and I love how we get close friendships and family like qualities in this book. Once again I’m completely won over by a chosen family element in a book.
Star Rating
Before I rate this book I want to give you a bit of background about what my rankings mean. I typically read books that I check out through the Libby app with my local library or through Kindle Unlimited.
I rarely buy ebooks unless they are cheaply priced or on sale. I also very rarely buy physical copies of books. I’m a bit of a minimalist so I have to absolutely adore a book to buy a physical copy that will be proudly displayed in my home.
So my ranking system is as follows:
- 5 Stars equals I am buying a physical copy of this book. I will read this book at least 10 more times, it is the best ever.
- 4 stars equals a great book. I might buy an ebook version when it’s on sale so that I can re-read it at least one more time.
- 3 stars equals a good book. I likely won’t read again but I appreciate the story.
- 2 stars equals “Meh.” I will not read this book again, it had a lot of problems and I did not care for it.
- 1 star equals a bad book. I barely finished this book and I will never recommend anyone waste valuable book reading time on this book.
- 0 stars is a did not finish book. I will never finish that book and it is banished.
The Words by A. Jade gets 5 stars, 3 peppers, a 1 tissue. It’s a fantastic story that’s well written, with tension, spice, laughter, heartbreak, and a happy ending. The end of the book provides us with a sneak peak into Skylar and Memphis so we know that we will likely be getting more books with these characters, which of course makes me happy.
Final Thoughts on The Words
I don’t always love rock star romances but this book was really good and I would highly recommend it for anyone who might like this genre or give it a try. I can honestly say I have not read a book quite like this so I can only recommend that if you like hard pasts, second chance romances with plenty of spice, this will be a good one for you.
After you read this book I recommend picking up something a little lighter on the trauma and triggers. The Miles High Club is a great series to cure a book hangover from something that may strike a few triggers.
Have you read The Words by A. Jade? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Follow me on TikTok and on Pinterest for more like this and pin this to your favorite book boards.
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