The Not-Outcast by Tijan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars.
Cutler Ryder was everything I wasn’t.
He was the hockey star. I was an outcast.
He was best friends with my stepbrother, that same stepbrother who hated me.
His two parents loved him. My mom was a junkie. My dad barely knew me.
Years passed.
I got my life together.
Cut went onto NHL stardom.
Then there was a text.
I was drinking.
There was a party.
Cut was there…
I loved Cutler Ryder since the first moment I saw him.
The only problem? He never knew I existed.
The Not-Outcast
I love that the heroine has mental health issues!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💋💋💋💋💋
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 👏👏👏👏👏
World building: 🌎🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 🥸😯😎☺️🥰
The setting: Kansas City
The heroine: Cheyenne – her mother was a Junkie from before she was born including while she was pregnant. Cheyenne has some sort of hyperactivity disorder where she can’t focus on certain things because she sees everything that is going on around her. Like there is too much stimulation. She now takes medication for it but without the meds she has trouble reading social cues, she has anxiety attacks and basically breaks down. However, with the meds she is smart enough to graduate college in three years.
The Hero: Cutler “Cut” Ryder – he has been a Hockey star since high school and now is with the NHL. He never knew Cheyenne in High school even though his best friend Chad was her step-brother.
The Love Story: I liked the fact that Cut pretty much fell for Cheyenne the first time he truly sees her. Though he never really noticed her in high school, he sees her now and wants to know her. He is a great guy, much better than his friend Chad.
I like that Tijan is having main characters that are real. So many people have to take medications for mental problems in real life, whether it be anxiety disorders, depression, attention deficit disorder, or something else, so I really like the fact that Cheyenne is not perfect but just wants to feel love like everybody else.
Tijan did a fantastic job of explaining how it felt to be Cheyenne. I loved the descriptions of what she was feeling at times. It made me feel for this girl and what she goes through. My kids had attention deficit disorder and so this really hit home with me. I remember a teacher once said to me that my son looked like he was never paying attention in class, but then when it came time for tests he did well. I remember thinking, so what is the problem then? But this book makes me see why it was hard for him to pay attention to one thing. Like Cheyenne.
I heard the yelling, then a wave of everything else hit me. And it hit me hard. The smells of the club rose up swiftly. The techno music, the hard bass, the neon lights flashing flooded me. Sweat. Grime. Beer. Perfume. Cologne. And other smells that I didn’t want to identify. It was jarring, and I sucked in my breath, remembering to fortify my walls.
The other things I really loved about this book were Cheyenne’s relationship with her younger brother Hunter, and the fact that Cut was such a great guy. He is unafraid and so supportive. The very best kind of book boyfriend. This was definitely one of Tijan’s best books ever!
I voluntarily read & reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts & opinions are my own.
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