Review: It Happens All the Time by Amy Hatvany

Title: It Happens All the Time
Author: Amy Hatvany
Publisher: Atria
Publish Date: March 28, 2017
Source: Publisher

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Amber Bryant and Tyler Hicks have been best friends since they were teenagers—trusting and depending on each other through some of the darkest periods of their young lives. And while Amber has always felt that their relationship is strictly platonic, Tyler has long harbored the secret desire that they might one day become more than friends.

Returning home for the summer after her college graduation, Amber begins spending more time with Tyler than she has in years. Despite the fact that Amber is engaged to her college sweetheart, a flirtation begins to grow between them. One night, fueled by alcohol and concerns about whether she’s getting married too young, Amber kisses Tyler.

What happens next will change them forever."

My Two Cents:

"It Happens All the Time" is the story of Amber and Tyler. They have been friends for years and Tyler has always had a thing for Amber. Amber can't see anything ever happening romantically with Tyler; he's her best friend and that is the way that she wants it to stay. Tyler becomes a paramedic in their hometown and Amber graduates from college and comes home to work for the summer. She comes home engaged, which makes Tyler incredibly jealous and sad. He has a choice of what he does when it comes to Amber and what he does next will break everything.

One of the things that I love about books so much is that they give you the ability to see really difficult subjects through the eyes of someone going through them. This is one of those books. Told from both Amber and Tyler's perspectives, this book sheds light on both rape and sexual assault. Both characters see the same situation very differently, which is scary when the situation is so serious and someone gets so badly hurt. I think it is important for books to tackle subjects like this!

The writing of the book was good. The story is told from both Amber and Tyler's perspectives. They see what happens on one night when they were both very drunk very differently. Amber is raped. Tyler can't believe that he would rape his best friend and is severe denial. It was so interesting to see how the characters see things and what makes them tick and make the decisions they make throughout the book. I did want to know more about how Tyler is able to absolve himself from what he did but then again, what reason could there really have been. Overall, this was a very powerful book.