Review | I Want It That Way by Ann Aguirre

I Want It That Way by Ann Aguirre
Series: 2B Trilogy #1
Published By: Harlequin
Published On: August 26, 2014
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Pages: 352
Format: eBook
Source: Bought
Rating: ★★★★

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Nadia Conrad has big dreams, and she's determined to make them come true—for her parents' sake as well as her own. But between maintaining her college scholarship and working at the local day care to support herself, she barely has time to think, let alone date. Then she moves into a new apartment and meets the taciturn yet irresistible guy in 1B…. 
Daniel Tyler has grown up too fast. Becoming a single dad at twenty turned his life upside down—and brought him heartache he can't risk again. Now, as he raises his four-year-old son while balancing a full-time construction management job and night classes, a social life is out of the question. The last thing he wants is for four noisy students to move into the apartment upstairs. But one night, Nadia's and Ty's paths cross, and soon they can't stay away from each other. 
The timing is all wrong—but love happens when it happens. And you can't know what you truly need until you stand to lose it.

I picked this book up on a total whim; the cover looked pretty, the title reminded me of the Backstreet Boys song, and it was really cheap on kindle. I wasn't expecting much from it but it completely exceeded my expectations. I had not read much NA before this so I had anticipated your average 'boy meets girl' kind of story with the predictable storyline, but this was different. Though the story takes a lot of the turns you expect it to, there is nothing particularly 'typical' about this book in my opinion.

When the main character in in college, you have preconceived ideas of how her college life will be portrayed and what that aspect of her life will involve. However, I really loved the different way that college was portrayed in this book. You didn't have the constant partying, getting drunk and having sex with random guys that you often find with popular culture's idea of college life; although there were a few parties, a girl has to have some fun. Nadia's college life was also nothing like my university experience (which was awful, FYI), but it was great to read about. I loved the focus on her friendship group but also her dedication to her studies and the emphasis on how important her classes and schoolwork were.

Speaking of her dedication to her studies, I loved that Nadia had such great ambitions and would do anything to reach her career goals. It was great to read about someone who knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life and wouldn't let anything get in the way of that. I loved the daycare and school parts of the book as I really enjoyed reading about Nadia's interactions with the children.

Children seem to be a great addition to NA books for me. One of my favourite NA books, Ignite by Lily Paradis, involves children and Ty having a child was one of the things I loved most about this story. Sam was such a great addition to the story and brought a whole new element to Nadia & Ty's relationship. Not only was he funny and adorable, he brought out a different side of Ty that gave him more dimension as a character. I also thought it was great to have a young single father, as it is a lot more common to have young single mother characters, it was nice to have something different.

As well as my obvious love for Sam, I really loved all the characters. I found them all to be very enjoyable to read about, not just Nadia and Ty as the main characters, but also Nadia's friends. I absolutely adored Max, he is probably my favourite character of the book, so it was great to fall in love with a whole cast of well written characters. Knowing that the second book in the series is Max's story makes me all the more excited for it.

Despite their being very strong friendship and family aspects to the story, the relationship is obviously the main focus. This relationship was a strange one for me because you wouldn't think these characters would work together but somehow they just do. You could almost feel the sexual tension between them coming out of the pages (nice work, Ann Aguirre!). The relationship was just so well written that there was no doubt in my mind these two were meant to somehow be together and that is what kept me reading.

Overall, this was a surprisingly great read. It was not only a great romance but the friendship and family elements to the story were perfectly additions that were done so well. I couldn't put this down, I was so invested in these characters and their stories. It was a great book to get me started in the NA genre as I am still trying to find me feet in there. I would highly recommend this to any fans of NA!