Review: Give Me Love by Kate McCarthy

Give Me Love (Give Me #1) by Kate McCarthy

Release Date: March 15, 2013
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 328
Format: eBook
Source: Review Copy
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Evie Jamieson, a former wild child, is not only a headstrong, smart-mouthed trouble magnet, she is also a lead singer with a plan. That plan involves uprooting her band, including her two best friends guitarist Henry and band manager Mac, to Sydney to kick off their dreams of hitting the big time.

Jared Valentine is the older brother of Evie's best friend Mac and also the man determined to make Evie his. They strike up a long distance friendship which suits Evie because she's determined to avoid the distraction of love, not only because it doesn't fit in with her plan, but because twice in the past it has left her for dead. Moving to Sydney, however, has put her directly in Jared's path and he has decided it's the perfect opportunity to make his play.

Unfortunately Jared, co-owner in a business that 'consults' in dangerous hostage and kidnapping situations, makes an enemy who's determined to enact revenge. When his enemy puts Evie in his sights, Jared not only has a fight on his hands to make her his own, but also to keep her alive.

Is accepting the love he's so desperate to give worth the risk to both her heart, and her life?


In Give Me Love, Kate McCarthy introduces us to a pseudo-family of zany characters that are often just as frustrating as they are endearing. The interactions between Evie and her friends are heartwarming and unique, full of those crazy things we only do with and say to people who love us unconditionally. The friendships involved in the story were one of my favorite parts of the whole book as a result - to anyone who's ever had friends that were more like an alternative family, this will play out in a very familiar way. The Aussie slang in the story only helped to make it all more fun.

It's also quite possible that there is nothing more awesome than a female rock star. In this genre, there are a lot of stories surrounding the idea of falling in love with a rocker, but rarely is it the girl that's the star (at least, in my experience). That's exactly what Evie is, and it's awesome.

As far as Evie and Jared go, I especially loved their beginning. While their chemistry was obvious, making it so that they never truly existed in the "just friends" zone, the easy camaraderie and affection they had for each other from the start was adorable, and their daily conversations were so cute. The story definitely set me up to root for them to find their happily ever after.

...And then suddenly more false starts in than I can remember, I was just begging them to make up their freaking minds already. Seriously. If these two could have just communicated, even moderately effectively, earlier, I would have enjoyed the book more than I did. It became an endless string of one does something stupid, the other runs off without talking about it, and they eventually make up after way too much drama and pouting. This was the point where the book started to drag, seemingly endlessly, and I considered making this a DNF a couple of times. When they did finally come through it and stop being idiots, I was glad I stuck through it. But it definitely wasn't an easy road to the end.

Despite that, I definitely enjoyed the book overall. Even though I felt like the story dragged on longer than it needed to, the characters and relationships in the book were great and a lot of fun, making it worth the read. This, coupled with the fact that it's a shorter book, had me still excited to read Give Me Strength, the second book in the series, for which I'm participating in the blog tour! I definitely didn't mind another dose of all the Jamieson goofballs!