The NerdHerd Reads: Open Thy Heart {by Jessica L. Brooks}

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21854134-open-thy-heart

Title: Open Thy Heart

Author: Jessica L. Brooks

Series: Flora, #2

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Received via author

The secrets just keep coming.
It’s summer in Shaver and, frankly, Dahlia Kennedy is bored. Even though she and Eva are throwing a party for David and she gets to visit Rowan in Ambrosia easier on account of summer hours, it seems like senior year is never going to come. Worse yet, it’s looking like the one thing she’s planned on doing for forever isn’t going to happen.
Cue Dahlia’s Embarrassing Incident: the tipping point that seems to shift everything into a new direction. David’s acting weird. Something happens to Rowan. Dahlia’s forced to ask the least likely person ever for help. A secret is blown wide open.
Conflict between the Lennox Rochforts and the Townsends grows more and more out of control until so much is going on in Ambrosia, Dahlia can barely keep up with life at home. Frustrated with trying to keep track of who knows what, Dahlia continues fighting to help the people she loves, and slowly, the truth is exposed.
Crazy thing is, she had no idea about any of it. And it changes everything she’s ever known.

Check out my review of If I Speak True here and By Sun and Candlelight here.

First, can we just talk about the covers for this series? Like seriously, they are so amazing. Anyway, Open Thy Heart was a great continuation, with just as much intrigue, interest, and uniqueness as in the first book.

I still had some of the same problems with Dahlia that I had in the first book, as she was slightly annoying and I found myself unable to relate to her or, well, really like her that much. She was so narrow-focused, seeing things only through her perspective and yelling at everyone about things before finding out the truth. While I realize having people hide things from you so much is really freaking' annoying, not everyone is trying to do you a disservice. Just calm down and find out the facts.

I found Rowan to be not as dynamic in this one as he was in the first one as well. This may have had to do with the fact that this story focused more on the political happenings rather than just him + Dahlia and we didn't see as much of him. But we also did see other sides to him, such as the leader he really is, and saw him truly as The Prince instead of just a boy, so that was also nice. We also got to see a different side of David, which was better than just wanting to yell at him all the time ;)

The plot did pick up in this one. There was still a few places where it lagged, but it definitely kept me interested. We got to see more of Ambrosia, which was awesome. We definitely got to see some more of the Ambrosia side characters and how they all connected. I will say, some of the things happened too fast, or I was confused as to why things were happening/why they were important, especially at the end. But just a little confusion, not enough to deter me from reading.

And the things that were revealed at the end? Definitely did not see that coming. Open Thy Heart is a unique story that will definitely keep you guessing abut what is to come, and I can't wait to see where this series goes.