Review: Learning to Live (Learning #1) by R.D. Cole

Due to strong sexual Content and language this book is not suitable for readers under 17 Being alive and living are not always the same. Trudy Love is used to being on her own and has rarely been shown affection. Between growing up in foster care and her abusive boyfriend she has no idea what life can be. At 19 she goes through something no one should ever experience and is left alone once again. Six months later she moves to Mobile, Alabama where she meets someone whose eyes bring back memories of the one person she misses everyday. Too late she finds herself caught in a storm of emotions that are unwanted, but she's determined to fight them off. Jaxon Coleman has a good life, and for him to attend one of the finest Med schools in the country and follow in his dad's foot steps is a dream come true. However, dreams can change in life and when he meets Trudy he knows his will never be the same. Jax knows she has secrets she is unwilling to share, but he's never given up on something he wants and he wants Tru. Can Trudy stop resisting her feelings and welcome the chance to live a different life than she pictured or will her defiance and haunted past eventually take her out of Jax's reach? After tragedy living is not easy, but with the right person it can be learned.

This is a sweet coming of age story. It’s about letting go of the past without forgetting the important lessons it has taught you along the way. It’s about finding yourself through trauma, despair and tragic loss. The main storyline evoked emotion in me firstly as a mother but also a fellow woman. The sadness of it will tear you open.

Tru Love is the heroine to beat ALL heroines.

Trudy Love is an imperfectly perfect character. She has been dealt a shitty set of cards – firstly being put into the care system at the age of 6 after her parents were more interested in where their next hit was coming from. Drugs were their priority, not their precious child. This moved on to having the WORST boyfriend any girl could ever have. Brad. Shitty shitty Brad. He was an extremely abusive character who appeared to get off on Tru’s fear and often capatilsed on it. I loathed him. He shared her around, he beat her, he demoralised him and finally she took the only thing she held dear to her…I hated him.

Tru brought herself back from the brink. She was back to having no-one again. She knew she needed to rediscover herself again, be her own person, not owned by someone. She learned that part of living life is being able to move on past the raw and open wounds but also being able to say “I deserve to live a happy life.” I LOVED that she learned from her abusers and now could take some of the biggest guys down…She was now defending other girls honor as well as her own. Tru Love is by far my absolute favourite heroine because she didn’t just drown in her grief and the feelings that life wasn’t fair – she actively worked her ass off to change and become a stronger version of herself.

The Complex family of Jazz & Jax

Wow…what a multi-diverse family they are. Jax’s parents couldn’t conceive again after he was born so they adopted children, one being a wheelchair bound beautiful girl – loved the inclusion of disabilities. This was a family that truly loved one another and would do anything to support the others. Their interaction was cute and playful and they all seemed to have an unbreakable bond. Jazz was a lovely girl but she would end up getting slapped a few times with how cheery and awake she was in the morning. Jax – gawd, how pleasing is it just to come across a guy that knows exactly what he wants and just goes for it. No games, no tricks just pure tru Love.

The pace was a bit slow in places for me, but overall it was nice, quick and sweet read. It wasn’t a 5 star read for me because the plot was predictable. I had worked out the person responsible pretty early on. I would have liked more twists and turns, maybe a bit more angst (I LOVE a book that makes me cry).