Thursday 5 September 2013

Review Present Perfect by Alison G Bailey @AlisonGBailey1

Reviewed by Donna ~ 5 my tear ducts are empty emotional stars!!

“I’ve been unsure about many things in my life except that I have always loved him. Every single minute of every single day that I have been on this earth, my heart has belonged to him. It has never been a question, never a doubt. The love had taken on many different forms over the years, but it had always been a constant.”

OMG…this has got to be one of the most emotional books I have ever read!! I was crying when I didn’t even know why I was crying, it was that emotional. I have never cried so much over a book. I think that this had a profound effect on me because I could relate to some of the subject matter, so I could see a lot of myself on the page and that kind of made it personal.

Amanda was born on 23/03/90 at 10.57pm, Noah was born 23/03/90 at 10.58pm, other than the 1 minute that separated their births, they had always been together. They had shared all their firsts, first teeth, smile and words. They crawled at the same time and took their first steps together. They were always together. They grew up as best friends, they were soul mates, they were inextricably linked to each other and their bond was fierce. No one could come between them.

Amanda or Tweet as Noah lovingly referred to her was a second child, she had an older sister who was “perfect,” she was constantly being compared to her and in her eyes she failed miserably. How could you compete with perfect looking, perfect grades, perfect at sport, perfect at dancing, just perfect at EVERYTHING!! This was not some feel sorry for me phase, her parents constantly compared the two and whether they meant to or not that always made Amanda feel inferior. In fact, this was so ingrained into her growing up that she was terribly insecure. She had no self-confidence whatsoever.

Noah was A-MAZ-ING, I just love him soooooooo much, every girl should have a Noah. He loved Amanda no matter what, she was his Tweet. He was always there for her, always looking out for her, they had “their spot” where they would put the worlds to rights and they told each other everything. They were as close as two BFF’s together could ever be. It was a beautiful friendship.

This story takes us on the journey of how Amanda and Noah’s friendship develops, their journey through life, to their teenage years. This is when the lines become a bit blurred, hormones come into being and suddenly both of them are seeing each other in different light. Suddenly, bums and boobs are noticed, abs and cute bums and Amanda has a hard time coming to terms with her “new”feelings for Noah. Noah on the other hand has no problem what so ever of embracing his new found love for Tweet. He tells her enough, but in Tweets eyes, she is not good enough for him, he deserves better. Noah is gorgeous, he is popular, the girls love him, they all wanted him, but he never acted upon their advances, he was saving himself for Tweet. He tried and tried to get her to see that their relationship was worth a try, but Tweet valued their friendship too much and did not want to put that in jeopardy should anything in their relationship go wrong, so she pushed and pushed and pushed until he finally relented and started dating. This however did not go down well with Tweet, while she didn’t want him, she didn’t want anyone else to have him either and the green eyed monster was constantly apparent. This actually managed to cause friction in their friendship and this is where the cracks started to appear and this is where I started crying the most!

“Tweet.” His voice was low and raspy.

“Yeah?” I said trying to keep my voice steady.

“Tonight was amaz…,” he paused. “You’re amazing.”

“Noah…” I trailed off as I choked back a sob.

“I wish you believed it,” he said. He left without saying another word.

Standing alone, watching him walk away, the only thought running through my mind was, I wished I believed it too, so I could be your girlfriend.


Noah knows what Tweet is doing and he only ever has casual dates for quite a while, he still tries to chip away at Tweets resolve in the hope that he can break through her walls of doom and gloom and get her to see that they are so compatible. It is like they were destined to be together forever. I must admit, Tweet did begin to annoy me, I was getting very angry with her at one point. I just felt like screaming at the kindle saying “open your god damn eyes and smell the coffee, he loves you, he is devoted to you, did you not see the stars, moons and plants align when you two were born FGS!!!” It is obvious to everyone and I mean everyone that they should be together but Tweet just does not get it AT ALL!! She loves him with all her being, but she just cannot get over the potential of losing him, so rather than take the chance she would rather go without.

“I can’t be around you right now. It hurts too much, because I am so completely and desperately in love with you Tweet.”…

“There hasn’t been a day in my life that I haven’t loved you. I wish you would just let me love you.”…

“You will always be the most important thing in my life. I’ll always be there for you no matter what or who. I have no past without you and I can’t imagine a future that doesn’t include you. I just need some time to figure out how I can have you in my life without having you be my life.”


There my heart breaks, yes I watched it splinter and shatter into smithereens and the waterworks from them on were on constant!! He put his heart and soul out there!!

They always shared their firsts and there was one first they didn’t and this severely crippled me, I would have thought that somehow this could have been written in, but alas no!! What happened with Tweet broke my heart and I don’t think I ever truly recovered after that.

They do go their separate ways as they go to college, not speaking, this breaks them both and it shattered any tiny bit of resolve I had left…I just continued to cry…and cry…and cry…things happen, life goes on….miserably…and I cry, yes I am still crying…did I say I was still crying….yep still crying (you get the gist).

Then Alison Bailey throws the curve ball, whoa!! I did not see that coming….I cannot say anymore…I am too emotional, too heart broken, too devastated, too emotionally spent, just too OMG OMG OMG.

This story was truly amazing, I felt everything, I could not put it down, I read it in one sitting, I inhaled it, I must be a sadist because it killed me, but it was one of those books that even though it was emotionally exhausting, you had to see it through to the end. Nothing I could write could possibly describe the number that this book did to me. It will forever be imprinted in my memory and in my heart. I totally adored this book!!

There are some amazing side characters in this book and am hoping that their stories are told so that I can continue to read about this couple.

I can’t believe that this is a debut book and all hats off to Alison Bailey, she did a fantastic job, the book is just WOW!!

I highlighted almost all this book, so I will leave you with another quote:-

“I wasted so much time and hurt you.”

“Nothing has ever been a waste when it comes to you. Not my time, my thoughts, or my heart. I don’t regret anything about my life with you, even the times we were apart. Those times showed me how much I belonged to you. I knew we would be together one day. I just had to be patient and wait. And you were so worth waiting for.”


I totally freaking loved this book, go forth and 1click, pick up a box of tissues and a big fat carton of ice cream and read. I’ll be here waiting for the counselling sessions to start…I have big shoulders, we can have a mutual sob fest!!

Totally and utterly amazeballs!!

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