Book Review - As Long As You Love Me by Ann Aguirre

As Long As You Love Me by Ann Aguirre
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In book 1 of the 2B Trilogy, I Want It That Way, we see Lauren exhibit some really extreme behavior with her drinking. She has this thing with Max and ends up leaving school.  On a trip home Nadia learns that her best friend Lauren and her older brother Rob are seeing each other.  In As Long As You Love Me we get the story about their relationship as well as what caused Lauren to almost self destruct.

As someone who has Generalized Anxiety it was kind of refreshing to see main character who sees life the way I do, as one big stressful situation. My situation wasn't as extreme as Lauren's but it did make going away to college stressful and I barely made it to graduation and online courses were so much easier to manage. Coming home to her small town has had a big change in Lauren, she's focused again on school and feels much more like herself.

Lauren has always had a crush on her best friend's brother. After Lauren and Rob run into each other at the story a friendship starts between them and along the way those old crush feelings return for Lauren. Rob's had a thing for Lauren too and for the two of them it's time to find a balance between the relationship they had before and the new one they are forming now.

Rob is a handyman and currently working on redoing his home. Lauren is the only one who gets his dreams/goals and she helps him start on his dream to make and sell custom furniture out of recycled materials. This gives Rob a big break he never dreamed of but can't turn down. It's also the one thing that could end their relationship.

I really liked that while the relationship seemed easy and perfect, it wasn't. Too many times I've read romances where the relationship fixes what the character struggles with, but in this book it's not enough. Lauren has to deal learn to really work on her problems in order to be a right fit for Rob and their relationship.

I can't wait to read book three, where we go back to apartment 2B to see how everyone is doing, especially Max. One step in healing for Lauren was to come to terms with what happened between her and Max.

Lauren reconnects and makes some new friends. We're kind of left hanging with their stories and while this is only supposed to be a trilogy I hope we get some idea on how they are dealing with their own struggles/lives.

I received an ebook arc from the publisher.