Young Love Part 1: A School Yard Love Story by Dean Amory

Young Love Part 1: A School Yard Love Story Reviews

• 
  Nele

  Dean Amory's "Schoolyard Love Story" is the first part of two charming contemporary young adult romance novels full of emotion and compassion, that in a realistic way explore the feelings and struggles of two high school classmates who fall in love with each other.
  
  The story depicts all the uncertainties and overpowering emotions that come with true young love in a most original and genuine way.
  
  For Sean and Katherine, everything begins at the start of a new school year, when they meet and instantly get a crush on each other. Dean Amory takes us along on their journey down young love's uncharted and often rocky path, where they (and we) discover both the bliss and the challenges that come with love at seventeen.
  
  Kate is the new girl at school. After a bad experience at her previous school, she's decided to make the best of her two last years at high school and take a certificate.
  
  Sean is the bad boy. He smokes and drinks, loves to argue with teachers, is rather on the rebellious side, often reckless, not doing any work and not afraid of skipping classes every now and then.
  
  Kate has been warned of Sean by her brother. So, when her brother introduces her to Sean, she feels confident that she will not allow herself to get emotionally involved with this boy. Nothing however has prepared her for the intensity with which he expresses his feelings, nor for the instant interest he shows for her, which she immediately recognizes as genuine and feels resonating throughout her own body.
  
  From day one, she knows she's his. But she also knows that, to her brother, Sean represents everything he wants to protect her from. Very soon also she witnesses Sean's eternal fights with the teachers and starts fearing that being assossiated with him will bring her in conflict with the teachers as well and hurt her school results.
  
  At the same time, during their personal conversations, she gets to know a side of Sean that is totally different from the non-conformist façade that he puts up in public. When he convinces her that he will do anything he can to please her and keep their relationship together, she realizes for the first time in her life, that theirs might be a relationship that lasts for ever.
  
  But then she gets overwhelmed with fear: She's only seventeen, isn't this relationship becoming too serious, too soon? What if she gets pregnant? How will her parents react when she tells them she really loves this boy? But does she in the first place? And if so, why then have their Saturday evenings out lost their magic and become so boring?
  
  "You're about to make a big mistake. Forget about him, this boy means only trouble!" her brother warns her when she informs him she intents to take Sean on a visit to her favourite aunt. After weeks of poundering and hesitating, she finally decides to heed her brother's advice and breaks up with Sean.
  
  One week only after she's broken off with him, she finds Sean at the discotheque enjoying himself with a group of girls. Though it hurts to see him like that, so soon after they split, she also realizes that he's changed back to the boy she fell in love with in the first place. When also at school, Sean returns to being his old self, Katherine starts doubting whether she was wrong in trying to change him and more wrong still when dumping him. "I shouldn't go with him, but I cannot get on without him!" she cries. Maybe their love deserves a second chance after all? Soon however, Sean and Katherine discover that broken things often have sharp edges and that trying to fix them can be very painful.
  
  Readers will appreciate the realistic depiction of the tortured heroes' psychological struggle after the heroine ends the relationship, especially when it becomes clear that both young people remain drawn to each other anyway and are incapable of restoring their inner balance. Are second chances really possible? Can recreating the past help the young couple to create a different future?
  
  Read all about it in Dean Amory acclaimed young adult teen romance novels Young Love, part 1, "A Schoolyard Love Story" and part 2 "First Love's Shadow", available at Amazon, Lulu, Barnes & Noble, etc...
  
  
• 
  Jaime Lavid

  Wow, "Young Love" is absolutely awesome and I really enjoyed reading it.
  I don't usually read young or new adult books (which is this?) because I thought they are too juvenile for me. But I decided to give it a shot anyway.
  After reading Young Love, I am persuaded otherwise!
  
  The story captivated me from the start. I realy liked this book. It was so full of emotions that it overwhelmed me sometimes.
  
  The story is good and it's well-written. I was able to connect to the characters and feel the emotion they were going through.
  
  I started reading it last night and couldn't put it down anymore. I finished it about 15 minutes ago. My emotions were everywhere! The book reminds me of my own life story.
  
  I appreciated the honesty with which the author describes Sean's personal struggle. The boy took my heart away just because he's not perfect or fake, but one hundred percent authentic. And Katherine was so strong! Doing the right thing all the time even though she knew it would cause her pain.