BOOK REVIEW: A Million Miles Away by Lara Avery

This is a book review for A Million Miles Away by Lara Avery. I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. 

When high school senior Kelsey's identical twin sister, Michelle, dies in a car crash, Kelsey is left without her other half. The only person who doesn't know about the tragedy is Michelle's boyfriend, Peter, recently deployed to Afghanistan. But when Kelsey finally connects with Peter online, she can't bear to tell him the truth. Active duty has taken its toll, and Peter, thinking that Kelsey is Michelle, says that seeing her is the one thing keeping him alive. Caught up in the moment, Kelsey has no choice: She lets Peter believe that she is her sister. As Kelsey keeps up the act, she crosses the line from pretend to real. Soon, Kelsey can't deny that she's falling, hard, for the one boy she shouldn't want.

This book is kind of hard to rate because I am still unsure about my feelings towards it. I didn't hate it, but I didn't really like it that much either. But I guess I liked it just a little bit more than I hated it. I didn't feel all the emotional pull that I thought I would with this book. Maybe it's because everyone's grief seemed kind of removed. They find out about Michelle's death and then suddenly it's after the funeral. And the author kind of sped through the weeks following the funeral as well. I saw her parents' grief, kind of, but not the grief of any of Michelle's friends. And I didn't really see much grief from Kelsey either. 

When it came to Peter, I did like him but I thought he moved fast with Michelle. When Kelsey met Peter for the first time (right before Michelle died), he told Kelsey he was on love with Michelle. This was despite the fact that they had only been dating for three weeks and a lot of that time was long distance. I just didn't buy it, especially since he couldn't even tell the difference between the twins. I know a lot of people didn't find it very realistic that Peter couldn't tell the difference between Kelsey and Michelle. I didn't have that much problem believing that part. Peter and Michelle hadn't known each other for very long after all. That just proves my point that he didn't know Michelle very long before declaring that he loved her.

I did kind of understand why Kelsey was doing what she was doing . . . at first. But I was annoyed because most of the time she was falling for Peter, she had a boyfriend. She had a very nice boyfriend. Yet she was pretending to be Michelle with this other guy and she even went on a trip with him behind her boyfriend's back. Then she gets mad at said boyfriend and starts trying to pick a fight with him just because she feels guilty about Peter. I just don't like cheating in a book. That's one of my things, I guess. 70% of the book, I just wanted her to be honest with EVERYONE. I guess that would have made a much shorter book though. Despite all the issues and drama, I was kind of rooting for Kelsey and Peter. I liked the ending, but I felt it was maybe wrapped up a little too neatly for my taste.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip. I don't think there is enough here to warrant a recommendation to read it.