Calling California by J.P. Grider Pages: 372
Published by Createspace Independent Pub on May 19, 2014
Genres: contemporary, Fiction, Love & Romance, New Adult, Romance
Source: ecopy from Author
Cali Parker is poor. She has a lot on her plate - her father is dying, she's working to help pay the rent, and she's two-years behind in college.
Griffin Brooks is rich. He has not a care in the world - he's acing his engineering courses, his hobby is restoring his fifty-thousand dollar classic car, and he has a different girl on his arm every week.
When Cali sees Griffin on her first day of class, she's immediately smitten and thinks she's found the perfect guy. When Griffin sees Cali at the bank, he immediately forgets the blonde he was with that morning. Then they meet, and their worlds collide.
Cali doesn't belong in Griffin’s world, and he doesn't understand hers. But just when Griffin convinces Cali that their two different worlds can blend, a secret is revealed that tears them apart.
Is their love strong enough to bring them back together, or will their worlds drift further apart?
Calling California is the first book in the New Adult Series, the Hunter Hill University Series. I got a copy of the second book, Mending Michael for review, but even though each of the books can be read as a standalone, I decided to read the first book before Mending Michael. Calling California is kind of a typical New Adult contemporary romance, told in dual narrative between the guy and the girl, which I love.
I think I liked Griffin more than our heroine, Cali in Calling California. Griffin is just such a sweetie pie. And so is Cali. She really is such a sweet, sweet girl, but she bugged the crap out of me a lot of the time. She is just so hung up on money and is beyond super bitter about her financial situation. I understand her being a little upset or realistic about her experiences, but it seemed like every other word out of her mouth was about being poor and disliking rich people, yada yada yada. It felt like way too much. And I was really bummed about that, because I really really like Cali as a person, but I just wanted to tell her to shut the heck up and stop being so bitter all the time. It made it hard for sweet, kind Griffin to tell her the truth about him and that stinks because he is so not the lying type. I put all the blame here on Cali. And it made it hard for me to really get to know Cali when all she was focused on was money. I get that the story is about money, and I absolutely think that some of it was necessary for character growth and development and it played a role in both of those things for Cali, but in my opinion, I felt like it was overdone with Cali.
Once the story moves along though, Cali starts to get past her money issues, or at least she tries too and I warmed up a lot to her once she made that attempt. After that, it was easy to just sit back and enjoy Cali and Griffin. I really liked how sweet Griffin was with Cali. I know he said that he used to be a love em and leave em type, but I never saw that. Even for a second with him.
Calling California turned out to be a good romance. I can’t say great, because like I said, I thought the author was a little too politically leaning with her representation of Cali, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t rub me the wrong way. I think she is a good person and I eventually warmed up to her but it took awhile, and there were quite a few veryyy stereotypical political statements that I felt were very inappropriate. I hope that the next book, Mending Michael has less political comments, but even so, I thought Calling California was a decent read.
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julie grider
Thank you very much reading and reviewing my book. 🙂