Home is Where You Are by Tessa Marie

Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publication Date: September 30th 2014
POV: Alternating - First-person, Present tense
My Rating: 4 out of 5

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Anna’s life reads like a check list.
Straight A’s (Check)
Editor of the school paper (Check)
Volunteering time at the local soup kitchen (Check)
Ivy League (So close she can taste it)
Falling in love with a homeless boy (Not on the list)

Dean has a plan too. Survive. After being subjected to his foster father’s violent attacks, Dean made the hard choice to leave. Now he lives on the streets doing everything he can to get by, refusing to let people help him. But when he meets Anna, he realizes not everyone is out to hurt him.

Slowly, Anna and Dean let each other in, blending their two worlds into one. But when a series of events brings Dean’s world into perspective, he pushes Anna away. Not willing to accept the line that divides them, Anna sets out to bring Dean back to her. Her determination and faith in their future puts her on the tracks of danger, and he is the only one who can save her.

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This story was really sweet and heartwarming. I was looking for something "feel-good" after having a bad experience with a dark romance, and this ended up being perfect.

I really loved Anna. She was a such a disciplined girl. She was so studious, but it was not in an annoying way at all. And she may have been volunteering to make her college applications look good, but she was also doing it because she is just an amazingly selfless person. She cared too much. She wanted to save everyone that she could not possibly save, and it broke her heart whenever she failed. But she did save Dean.

Dean was a great kid who had been given a really shitty hand. He did his best and I actually really admire him for sticking through his situation as long as he had. And then surviving on the streets for two years at his young age and remaining clean is impressive.

It was a lot of fun to watch them falling in love, and it was just such a heartwarming story. They were so perfect together and their paths were clearly always meant to join. They have such a bright future together.

“We may be part of two very different worlds, but right now we're in our own together.”