Endless Love by Niquel – Review

*** (3 stars) Raw, intense emotion from male characters, but a female main character that was lacking in many ways.

Alecia was horribly attacked by Jake, who just happens to be the brother of her boyfriend, Allan. Luckily, Allan saved her before things got worse, but Alecia has sunk into a severe depression as a result of this traumatic attack.

Alecia feels like she has been broken, that she will never be “normal” again and live life like she used to. While I understand how being broken and the traumatic event she went through could affect her, she often struck me as using this as an excuse. She did not obtain any counseling, yet she wondered why she struggled so much with getting past what had happened.

To make things even more difficult for Alecia, she has two men in her life, Allan and Lance. Both men claim to love Alecia, but Lance expresses that better than Allan. Lance has his life together and knows what he wants, while Allan can only make a commitment to the drugs and alcohol he uses to self-medicate. I enjoyed seeing the thought and concern behind Lance’s actions and how he told Alecia what he felt and wanted, but he did not pressure her.

Niquel does an excellent job creating the conflict and drama between Alecia and the two men. An additional conflict is added when Allan finally decides to seek treatment for his substance abuse problem. Unfortunately, Allan forgets about Alecia while he is in treatment, and forms other attachments. I could not believe that Alecia would still want Allan after everything he did.

The emotions that resulted from the different conflicts, especially from the two men were raw, intense, and genuine. Niquel created separate and distinct personalities and emotions for each of the men that made you either love or hate them, and had you picking which one you felt was right for Alecia. Unfortunately, emotions seemed to be lacking on Alecia’s part.

There are many instances where Alecia comes across as immature, indecisive, petty, and selfish. She is like a roller coaster with the ups and downs between the two men in her life and her feelings for the two men. She was a hard character for me to like, and at times, she got on my nerves with her behavior and choices.

While there were some good things to be found in Endless Love, I had a difficult time with not liking Alecia (the main character). Not only did I have issues with her lack of emotion, immaturity, and indecisiveness, I was left wondering what made her so special? There were no reasons given (or shown) as to what made Alecia so special – why were both men so deeply in love with her?