Enemies
“Tomorrow we can go back to hating each other.”
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1. ENEMIES by Tijan
SYNOPSIS
Stone Reeves was my neighbor, and I’ve hated him since sixth grade. Gorgeous and charismatic, he became the town’s football god, while I became the town’s invisible girl. He went to a Division 1 school for football, while my father was fired by his father. His team won the National Championship, while my mother died the same day. He was a first-round pick for the NFL while I made the worst decision in my life.
Now I’m in Texas trying to pick up the pieces of my life. But, Stone is here. Stone is everywhere. It doesn’t matter that a disaster has struck my life again. It doesn’t matter that he’s the one trying to console me. It doesn’t matter that he’s the nation’s newest football obsession. Because for me, he always has been and always will be my enemy.
BOOK REVIEW
Grief is a right bastard. Sneaks up on you, blasts you, hits you, pounds you, leaves you wrecked. There’s a moment of peace. You never know how long it could last. Minutes. Hours. Days. You’re starting to believe you can ‘do this’ and the bastard comes back, knocks you over with a battering ram. But if you fight it, deny it, ignore it, it’s still there. The bastard is just waiting until your shields are down, then he gets you again. Only way to deal is to take the beating, then breathe once he’s gone, and wait for him to return because it would get better.
Tijan created a story about two people with broken hearts but still intact hope and determination to work hard and chase dreams. Enemies was an angsty romance between childhood friends turned lovers, who found each other yet again after years apart to deal with loss and grief (which was a huge topic in the book and a very painful one for my rather weak heart) together.
“I need you to hate me.”
“I will.”
He sank down on a chair in the corner, toeing the curtains out of the way so he could see outside his window, and there he held me, “Tomorrow we can go back to hating each other.”
Dusty and Stone were not ideal characters with no middle ground when it came to emotions. They were destructive in a way, either suppressing their feelings or snapping, hurting and healing each other at the same time without falling prey to ghosts of their messed-up past. They constantly pushed and pulled each other, giving in to simmering sexual tension but shielding their love-hungry bleeding hearts.
It broke my heart to see Dusty being lonely, intentionally closed off, and afraid to share the pain. It’s always unfortunate to witness how a person is so used to losing the loved ones that he/she decides not to get close to anybody. Stone was not problematic per se. He was determined, focused, and career-driven. I thought it was kind of a cliche that lack of communication was a focal point of Dusty and Stone becoming enemies. But at the same time, considering their personality traits, it was understandable and arguably justifiable.
“This day. Right here. Right now. I would be better. I would no longer be an okay person, or a good person. I would be a fucking great person, and I’d have to google how to do that because I knew it’d be a lot of work.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tijan is a New York Times best-selling author that writes suspenseful and unpredictable novels. Her characters are strong, intense, and gut-wrenchingly real with a little bit of sass on the side.
Tijan began writing later in life and once she started, she was hooked. She is currently writing to her heart's content in north Minnesota with an English Cocker Spaniel she adores.
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