*Originally reviewed on Pages Of Forbidden LoveI am so incredibly torn on how I felt about this book. I don’t even know where to begin. After reading it I couldn’t bring myself to give it a rating on Goodreads. I thought if I waited until I wrote a review to rate it I would eventually decide but I still don’t know about that. I sometimes really loved this book. I devoured it in a night but I don’t know…I guess I was just left feeling cheated and disappointed at the end. I mean to the point where it took me forever to fall asleep because I just couldn’t come to terms with how the whole book turned out. On one hand this would usually be a sign of an amazing book, one that keeps me up thinking, but the problem is I couldn’t concentrate on how heartbreaking the story was or how sad I was for Anna. Instead I was thinking of how different the book ended up being than I had originally expected (not all a bad thing) and about the ending…Ugh that ending!Okay sorry maybe I should start explaining a little more. When I say the book was different than what I expected I mean that although I knew the story would be an emotional one I was still expecting it to maybe be kind of a fun book also. That maybe it would have some really cute moments and maybe a laugh or two between all the seriousness. It wasn’t. For me it was all very sad and extremely serious. This was not a deal breaker for me. I really didn’t mind this at all. In fact I loved that it made me miserable to read about poor Anna who was once the center of her moms world when she was very little then just tossed aside, losing all her moms attention, when her mother got too lonely and started her multiple searches for the man of her dreams. I was so angry at her mother for not being there for Anna and not making sure that Anna still felt wanted and loved while she herself searched for love but I also felt bad for her. She always needed someone else in her life for fear of being alone. She had no boundaries set for Anna and didn’t provide the consistency that Anna needed in her life. I don’t doubt that she loved Anna but she really just didn’t know how to be a mother.Like her mother Anna also needs to feel loved. She felt like her moms whole world when she was really little then all of a sudden she didn’t really matter anymore. She became too old to hear her mother stories and left out of most of her mothers life. Left alone a lot, Anna just wants a connection so when she finally gets some attention, although not the kind she needs, she soaks it all in, lets it continue, and eventually initiates it. Boys can make Anna feel less lonely so even though she loses friends and everyone talks about her she turns to them to feel like part of a family. You have no idea how much this made me cry for Anna. It just broke my heart.The above was great. It made it the kind of story I really enjoy but there were things that really disappointed me. For example, I was expecting Sam to come into the story much sooner than he did. I knew there would be multiple guys throughout Anna’s story but I was expecting Sam to be a more current fixture in her story. I was just waiting and waiting for him to show up. I felt like I didn’t get enough time with him and his family. He was great for Anna but I felt like i would have enjoyed it more if he would have come in sooner and things happened more gradually.Toy was another characters story that wasn’t what I was expecting. Okay truthfully I didn’t know what to expect with her from the summary or while reading but I was left with little information about her. Anna and Toy become friends but Anna is always secretly envious of Toy. I could never really figure Toy out and was hoping for an explanation. I sort of got one but not really. Makes me wonder if we are going to get her story in another book or if that’s just it.Uses For Boys let me get emotional for its characters and where the story was going, for the most part, made me really enjoy the book but somewhere towards the end my feelings just took a turn. I felt like things happened kind of quickly all of a sudden and then it was over. The worst part for me was that I couldn’t feel any closure whatsoever. I was not a fan on how the book ended but although I sometimes think I really disliked it I just can’t say that I didn’t like it because at times I did find it great (even loved it). See… torn.
