Lefty's Lowdown: You Before Anyone Else by Julie Cross by Mark Perini

You Before Anyone Else by Julie Cross and Mark Perini
(standalone)
Published: August 2, 2016 by Sourcebooks Fire
Source: I received an eARC of this book for review via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This has not influenced my opinion of the book.

Summary from Goodreads: 
Model Finley needs someone to help her shed her "good girl" persona, so she'll try Eddie on for size.

New York City model Finley is fed up with hearing the same feedback at castings: she needs to take some serious action to wipe the "good girl" stamp from her resume if she wants to launch to stardom.

Enter Eddie Wells. He's shallow, predictable…and just as lost as Finley feels. Deep down, Finley is drawn to Eddie's bravado, his intensity. Except Eddie is hiding something. A big something. And when it surfaces, both loving and leaving Finley will become so much harder.

 Y'all, books like this are my guilty pleasure. This is not what anyone would consider top-notch literature. It's got tropes coming out the wazoo. AND YET--I ate up every word. I read the novel in one day.

Okay, so this book is told from two points of view: Finley, the too-sweet model losing out on jobs because she's not edgy enough, and Eddie, the new, gorgeous, mysterious model on the block. They meet at a party, shouldering their own separate burdens, and have a one night stand. Except afterward, instead of going about their lives and looking fondly back on that one night of spontaneity, their lives continue to collide. Like I said, this book is brimming with tropes, starting with these characters and their romance. There is nothing particularly special about any of it (I didn't even remember the characters' names until I read the summary), but when I was actually reading, I was incredibly absorbed in the story. I wanted to see them finally confess their love for each other; I wanted to know the secrets they were keeping; I was rooting for them to get their shit together.

That's not to say that this story had no depth or anything, because it did! Finley and Eddie both had to work through some personal issues and figure out what they wanted for their futures. They struggled with vastly different familial issues. They both grew a lot by the end of the novel and I was satisfied by the conclusion.

Some other smaller things that helped me enjoy this story are 1) the minor characters--I just adored Finley's family! I thought every time her dad & brothers were in a scene, the book just got so much more interesting--and 2) the modeling. I know that Mark Perini actually is a former model, so it created this authentic insight into the world of high-fashion modeling, which is something I've not really seen a lot of in novels.

This is basically just another "trashy" (I only say this because I don't know what other word to use. It's not really trashy, but I hope you get what I mean) new adult book. I'd say it is similar to Abbi Glines's work (a little less steamy, though) so if you're a fan of the types of books shes writes, then I definitely recommend this one. It's really a great book if you just want to get lost in some fictional drama for a few hours.

3.5/5 stars