"We Were Memories" By: Brandi Aga - Book Review

My word, I don’t know if I’ve ever had such extreme mixed emotions about a book. This was quite the ride, let me tell you. The first thing I loved about this book was the cover. I think the colors are so pretty and I like that it’s sexy while simultaneously showing us part of the story. The second thing that I really enjoyed was the writing style. I was a little shocked that this was a debut and this was absolutely not a conventional romance. As always, I will do my best to leave out spoilers, but I felt so strongly about certain aspects of this book that it may be a little difficult.

Now, I love a flawed character. Nothing bores me more than a perfect character that does all the right things all the time, so I appreciated that aspect, and believe me, Leylah is about as flawed as they come. This girl drove me crazy half the time. She was married to her husband, Ryan for nearly a decade and for the last couple of years, their marriage had been going south. Ryan was neglectful and refused to talk about what is wrong in their marriage. I felt bad for her on this aspect.

One day, she meets up with her best friend, Erin for their weekly hang out. Erin tells her about this guy she met on a dating site and wants to know if he’s a good guy, so she downloads the app on Leylah’s phone and creates her a profile so she can talk to the guy and see if he’s sleazy. Turns out he is, but Leylah doesn’t delete the app right away and gets gross messages from a bunch of guys. One is different and it stands out. It’s from a man named Roman telling her that she’s beautiful. That’s probably the first time she had been told that in a while.

Too late to back out now, I click on his profile and find more pictures of his tattoos. He has full sleeves on both arms all the way down to his hands and two more tattoos that wrap around the back of his legs. Why the hell is he on here when he could obviously have any woman he wanted? I decide to be polite and type out a quick thank-you. Being nice never hurt anyone… right?

As Ryan continues to ignore her and focus on his work, she begins to build a relationship with Roman through messages since she lives in Texas and he lives in California. (As you can probably tell at this point, if cheating is a hard limit for you, this is probably not a book you want to read.) Eventually he asks her to come visit him. When Ryan lets her down yet again, she agrees. Personally I understand why she clung onto Roman. She had been hurting for years and was starving for someone to make her feel wanted. Ryan has no idea that she flew to California and slept with Roman. That part really bothered me, that she didn’t feel a shred of remorse. I thought for sure once she saw Ryan again, she would be consumed by guilt, but it never happened. After a while though, she knows she can’t continue with her marriage.

I sit and stare at him for I don’t even know how long, making sure this is what I want. There is no turning back after this. And I know, deep down I know, I can’t be with Ryan if my heart isn’t fully invested. Roman or no Roman, it’s not fair to make Ryan wait while I figure it out.

“Ryan, I met someone.” There. It’s out. At least I think I said it. It sounded more along the lines of all one word: RyanImetsomeone.

Silence. I can hear the clock ticking.

“You… met someone.” His brows are furrowed together. It’s not a question, but more of a statement, like he’s tasting the words on his tongue, the words bitter and ugly.

This scene was the first time I saw any real emotion from Ryan and to her, it was too little too late. I just had really mixed emotions because while I understood why she felt the way she did, it was like she was letting her marriage die without mourning it. Another thing that drove me crazy was that she never told Roman she was married. Ever. He had to find out for himself by having his best friend Blaze look into her and he never once mentioned knowing about it. Communication issues from day one with those two.

I liked Roman, I honestly felt bad for the guy for a large part of this book. The way he spoke took some getting used to, but he was a good guy. He just had a dangerous past with some dangerous people. He’s had a vendetta out for the man that killed his sister long before he met Leylah and he never lost sight of that. However, he decides to leave Leylah in the dark about this whole thing, so in the process of trying to protect her, he ends up pushing her away.

“Hey, beautiful.” She stares back at me, searching for answers, no doubt. Answers for where I’ve been, what I’m doing.

“I heard your bike, but I was just about to leave. Supposed to be meeting Erin.” She tries to be strong, but I can see right through it. I’m hurting my girl, and it kills me. She looks up at me, squintin’ from the sun in her eyes. I pull her closer to me, grabbing on to the holes in her shorts, lacin’ my fingers through the rips at her thighs. “Roman.”

“Don’t babe,” I say in warning. I take the risk and lean down to kiss her.

This book did not go the direction I expected and honestly left me feeling a little sad. Ryan made a complete turn-around for me and Leylah had pretty great character development. I felt she was incredibly immature in the beginning, but by the end, she had grown a lot. To be honest, I felt this book was more of a “drama” type book more so than a romance. I admire that this went well outside the realm of normal romance and definitely made me feel something. I had a VERY hard time rating this book, but the ending, specifically the very last sentence was fantastic and made me hope for a sequel so I landed on the four star rating. If you don’t mind cheating or love triangles and enjoy imperfect characters, I would definitely give this one a read.