Blog Tour + Review: Behind the Bars by Brittainy C. Cherry


Behind the Bars, the first beautiful and emotional standalone in the all-new Music Street Series from Brittainy C. Cherry is available NOW!



Behind the Bars Wrap



When I first met Jasmine Greene, she came in as raindrops.
I was the awkward musician, and she was the high school queen.
The only things we had in common were our music and our loneliness.
Something in her eyes told me her smile wasn’t always the truth.
Something in her voice gave me a hope I always wished to find.
And in a flash, she was gone.
Years later, she was standing in front of me on a street in New Orleans.
She was different, but so was I. Life made us colder. Harder. Isolated.
Caged.
Even though we were different, the broken pieces of me recognized the sadness in her.
Now she was back, and I wouldn’t make the mistake of letting her go again.
When I first met Jasmine Greene, she came in as raindrops.
When we met again, she was the darkest storm.





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Excerpt:


By the way, what happened to Todd’s nose?” I asked.
“I broke it,” Elliott said matter-of-factly.
“What? How? Why?”
He shrugged before turning to look out the window. “He called you a bad name.”
“What was it?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Eli,” I started.
He turned my way and locked his hazel eyes with my browns. “Jazz…” He shook his head. “It wasn’t true.”
I swallowed hard, a big part of me certain Todd’s words held some form of truth.
Elliott saw it in me—my fear. He kept shaking his head and whispered, “I don’t feel sorry for you. Sometimes you look at me like you think I feel sorry for you, and I want you to know I don’t. I think you’re perfect the way you are.”
I quietly laughed at him repeating the words I’d told him earlier. A few tears rolled down my cheeks. “I’m a little messed up.”
“I know.” He nodded. “That’s why I like you.”
He went back to staring out the window, and I kept staring at him.
And there it was.
So small, so tiny, so real.
Love.
It wasn’t love, but it was the beginning of it.
I knew I was young, and I knew it was stupid, but in that moment, I began to fall in love with the quiet boy who quietly cared for me. The boy who was scared and still strong. The boy who stood up for me when he was surrounded by reasons not to do such a thing. I hadn’t known much about love. I hadn’t known how it looked, felt, or tasted. I hadn’t known how it moved, how it flowed, but I knew my heart was tight and currently skipping a few beats. I understood the goose bumps covering my arms. I knew this stuttering boy who was sometimes so scared was someone worth loving. He was worth being the first one I gave my heart to.
I knew Elliott Adams was love.
And I was falling into him so fast.






description

Afbeeldingsresultaat voor 4 stars


**ARC provided by author in exchange for an honest review**

"Take it slow. There's no need to rush it. Let the harmony fall together the way it's meant to. There's nothing worse than a rushed note that could've been so perfect."


I love Brittainy C. Cherry's books. Normally, the blurb of this book wouldn't be one that would be high on my TBR list. I normally stay away from romance stories with music related elements, but I trusted this author to deliver a great and original story. She definitely did in the first half of this story. Jasmine Greene has been home schooled her whole life but finally is allowed to attend high school. There she meets the skinny bullied shy boy Elliot. Jasmine is popular and Elliot doesn't understand why she is showing interest in befriending him. These two characters both don't have an easy life. Elliot is being bullied daily and Jasmine has a mother who's putting a lot of pressure on her. However they have one thing that connects them, and that is their love for music.
"One can't truly heal if they pretend the cracks don't exist."


Behind the Bars isn't always an easy book to read. It has a lot of very emotional and heartbreaking scenes that had me in tears. I would've rated this book higher if it wasn't for the second part of this book. I was a bit disconnected from the characters in the second half of the book. I would've wanted the author to focus a bit more on the personal development of the main characters. What they had been through in the years these two were apart. I was especially missing this for Elliot. He changed the most but it didn't fully come across as authentic. Being disconnected to them as individuals made it harder for me to fully be engaged in their second chance at love. 


"You're the music in a mute world, and my heart beats because you're here."


Nonetheless, Behind the Bars was still a very beautiful contemporary second chance romance. Even though there were some elements that didn't touch me as much as others, I still believed in the Elliot and Jasmine's love. These two were perfect for each other, I just wish the second part was executed a bit differently or that it was longer. I loved all the side characters because they added so many different layers to the story. Especially Elliot's neighbor TJ played such an important role and touched so many lives in this book. And Jasmine's dad Ray, who was just the most protective and supportive person ever. I also loved the title because it was just perfect for this book.






About the Author:


Afbeeldingsresultaat voor Brittainy C. Cherry
Hi! I'm Brittainy! Join me as we travel through my mind as a Romance Author. This includes such things as my random thoughts, tricks, tips, things I'm learning, things I'm re-learning, things I'm forgetting, and my weird ways of crafting stories.


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