Review: Taken By Storm by Angela Morrison

Title: Taken By Storm
Author: Angela Morrison
Category: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Publisher: Razorbill, 2009

291p

There are many rules in Leesie Hunt's life. No kissing, no dating outside the Mormon faith and definitely no sex. Leesie's faith is strong and she has no problem living by the rules while she plans her college future and dreams of the day she will be safe in an environment where ..." roommates don't drink or sleep around...and thousands and thousands of the hottest guys on the planet who all live by the same rules as I do".
Leesie is about to discover that life does not always go according to plan.

Michael is not a Mormon and sex is definitely on his agenda. His dreams revolve around his passion for deep sea diving but tragically this love has brought him great pain. Michael is grieving the loss of his parents and friends in an horrific hurricane while on a diving trip.

A desire to help Michael is what first attracts Leesie to him ......an attraction that soon becomes love but can their love overcome their differences?

Taken By Storm is a beautifully written and very moving story of first love. Before I began reading I had some doubts about whether I, as a grandmother, would be able to connect to Leesie and Michael's story but I need not have feared. It took very few pages before the years fell away , I was seventeen again and reliving my own experience.

I loved the format - it's original , creative and refreshing to read something other than straight prose. It's a mixture of Leesie's poems, Michaels' dive-logs and chatroom conversations which really seem to allow the reader to get to know the characters and having both perspectives told helps understand each ones motivations and highlights the age old differences between man and woman.

Excerpt p177: "You just want to sleep with me". Even in this sweaty barn, she's turning to back to ice. "You don't care about love."
"It's the same thing." My hands sting where i touch her. "One comes from the other."
"Not for me." Her head drops. She whispers, "I really love you." Her hands curl into fists on my chest.
"And my kind of love isn't real?" I shove her off me. "It's more real than all your religious fantasies."

Once I began this book I found it hard to put down . It's intensely emotional and so very real - I would think most people could relate to it on a personal level.

Loved it! Highly recommended.

For more about Angela Morrison and her books you can visit her website here

I read this book as part of International Book Tours Taken By Storm tour.