Upside Down by Lia Riley - Off The Map #1 - 4 Stars!

Upside Down by Lia Riley

Four OCD Stars

Blurb - If You Never Get Lost, You’ll Never Be Found

Twenty-one-year-old Natalia Stolfi is saying good-bye to the past-and turning her life upside down with a trip to the land down under. For the next six months, she'll act like a carefree exchange student, not a girl sinking under the weight of painful memories. Everything is going according to plan until she meets a brooding surfer with hypnotic green eyes and the troubling ability to see straight through her act.

Bran Lockhart is having the worst year on record. After the girl of his dreams turned into a nightmare, he moved back home to Melbourne to piece his life together. Yet no amount of disappointment could blind him to the pretty California girl who gets past all his defenses. He's never wanted anyone the way he wants Talia. But when Bran gets a stark reminder of why he stopped believing in love, he and Talia must decide if what they have is once in a lifetime . . . or if they were meant to live a world apart.

Upside Down is book #1 in the Off The Map Series and the first book I have read by this author. I was given this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review so here goes...

I liked this book it’s a deep, gritty little love story and I really enjoyed it.

Talia is a bit of a mess, she’s grieving the death of her sister and is to be honest a little unstable. All that being said I found her completely relatable and I totally engaged with her.

I have some weird OCD tendencies and quite concerningly they are not dissimilar to Talia’s in the book lol. I empathized with how Talia felt and I saw elements of both myself and my family and friends in her character.

Bran, to be honest as much as I liked him I found him a bit of a self absorbed asshole!!!

Obviously we find out that Bran has also been through some stuff but in the same breath he deals with it by becoming a knob!!!

I loved Bran’s POV chapters and I would have loved to have had more of them to really get into this head and what he was thinking.

By about half way through this book I was totally turning team Bran and to be honest I kinda loved him at the end. The boy just needed a big ole hug!!

He earned some massive brownie points because of how he dealt with Talia’s OCD issues, I loved the enduring love vibe he gives off towards her its super cute.

Talia’s mother was CHRAAAAZY!!! I was literally laughing out loud at her bizarre behaviour.

I could really have done with an epilogue; I like to know what happens after the initial HEA.

This is the first book in a series I’m intrigued to know if the next book will be about Talia & Bran or completely different people??

Overall I enjoyed this book it was edgy enough to keep my interest and had me sucked in till the end 4 stars.