Dreams of 18 by Saffron A Kent

Before I get into this review I feel like I should say a few things.

Saffron is an author who I absolutely adore, she wrote one of my favorite books EVER * The Unrequited *

I have always loved her way with words and her ability to pull you into a story. 

With that being said let’s get into Dreams of 18. 

*contains spoilers*

“Something made of Moon and Magic”

This book is a stand-alone but it includes characters that we already met in Medicine Man. 

We first got to meet Violet as one of Willows friends in Heartstone.

This book starts off with Violet first seeing Graham when she was 16 but both characters never actually talk until she turned 18 even though she Brian’s (his son) best friend and they’re neighbors.

Stay with me- on the night of her 18th birthday she decides to sneak into Graham’s yard which she usually does to collect flowers. They meet, share a kiss (which is all her doing) her sister and Brian finds them in this compromising position and it “ruins their lives”. 

Basically he’s labeled a pedophile because of his age and the fact that he’s the coach at her school. Violet is labeled the town whore and rumors are being spread that she left Brian ( whom she’d never had a relationship with) for his father and whatnot. 

She had a “breakdown” and ends up in Heartstone where she lies about the reason for her being there by saying that her fiancé died. 

Violet is  afraid to talk to anyone or have anyone interact with her. She always wear hats and glasses as a “disguise” and she has issues going through front doors because she’s scared of people “yup you read it correctly”. 

At this point it was already far fetched for me because from the description of “the kiss” it barely lasted 10 seconds but yet still her sister and Brian in all their shock and disgust had time to tape said kiss which goes viral. And what we learnt  later on is Brian entering into a relationship with her sister was the final straw that led to her psychotic break. 

Honestly, I have so much respect for people who battle mental illness/ anxiety or depression because it’s not easy to get up and fight the same battles everyday. In saying this, how Violets character was written I saw Nothing that would of led to this level of illness so I was unable to sympathize with her. 

Fast forward 10 months from the “kiss” and she sets out to find Graham to apologize.

She found him in a bar and the story “develops” form there. He “hates” her and runs her out of town but she’s very persistent so she stays. Moving along, she ends up staying with him to help with his alcoholism while planting flowers, sucking lollipops and lying as to why she’s not in college (because of her fears) .

So began the lead up to the sex, her first time “yup she’s a virgin” who saves it for him.

And this is where the story took a turn for me. The sex scenes in this book are fucking cringe worthy. It hurts my heart to type this review because I live for saffron’s words but this story....I’m ashamed to say that I was unable to finish it. I did receive an ARC so I tried extremely hard to get pass the dialogue but I got to 72% and I refused to read anymore. 

I already had issues with the book, the lack of chemistry between characters, Violets “illness”  and the storyline. So to get to the sex scenes and discover that it is worst that any other part of the book cemented my decision. 

There is NOTHING sexy or intriguing about the characters in general and the quirks that are presented for us to find cute or relatable only made me cringe. 

(The only redeeming thing for both characters is the pet names that they gave each other)

Never in my life have I read a book and the sex scenes threw me off so much. Not only is ALL the descriptive words repetitive but the dialogue itself is disgusting, I felt like a horny 16 year old wrote this instead of a talented best selling author. 

So I guess this brings us to the end of my review, I can only base this on the percentage of the book I have read. The overall storyline had potential, but the characters fell flat and I was left disappointed. 

For these reasons and more that I will not mention in respect to the author I will have to give this book 2/5 stars. 

I truly hope that this review is received in a respectful way. I am very passionate about the things I love so my reviews always reflects it. I also believe in being honest even if I’m the only one who chooses to do so. 

Please see below for my favorite quote from Strawberry Man and Jailbait. 

"You deserve someone who wakes up every morning and gets down on his knees to thank God that you belong to him. And then he does it all over again before he goes to sleep. You deserve someone who lives in awe of you, understand?”