Sustained – Review

THIS POST MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!! 

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Hello sassy people! Today I’m gonna talk about one of my new favorite books, “Sustained”! I read this book in February and I loved it, so I’m going to walk you through each reason why I think it is so amazing.

This intro was my sealing point, I absolutely love when an author talks about her writing process, how she felt, how the story was built, how she sees the story she wrote. So I started loving this book even before I read it. Now a funny point is, I didn’t read the blurb, I make it a habit of not reading the blurb of books in a series, I like to be surprised, so I entered this book knowing only Jake’s name and knowing that the female lead’s name was Chelsea. That made for a very nice experience, the book was surprising and delightful.

Sustained 
Author: Emma Chase
Series: The Legal Briefs #2
Blurb: A knight in tarnished armor is still a knight.
When you’re a defense attorney in Washington, DC, you see firsthand how hard life can be, and that sometimes the only way to survive is to be harder. I, Jake Becker, have a reputation for being cold, callous, and intimidating—and that suits me just fine. In fact, it’s necessary when I’m breaking down a witness on the stand.
Complications don’t work for me—I’m a “need-to-know” type of man. If you’re my client, tell me the basic facts. If you’re my date, stick to what will turn you on. I’m not a therapist or Prince Charming—and I don’t pretend to be.
Then Chelsea McQuaid and her six orphaned nieces and nephews came along and complicated the ever-loving hell out of my life. Now I’m going to Mommy & Me classes, One Direction concerts, the emergency room, and arguing cases in the principal’s office.
Chelsea’s too sweet, too innocent, and too gorgeous for her own good. She tries to be tough, but she’s not. She needs someone to help her, defend her…and the kids.
And that — that, I know how to do.

The blurb is pretty much the essence of this book. Jake is a really quiet though guy, we saw that in the first book, we don’t really get the romantic sweet guy vibe from him, he is not a giant teddy bear, he’s just a giant. But then he meets a kid, a little boy who tried to steal from him, and because he recognized himself in that kid, he decided to help and take him to his parents. But he doesn’t have parents, Rory and his five siblings lost their mom and dad in a fatal accident, and now they are under the care of their beautiful and sweet aunt, Chelsea.

In the begging, before we even know about Rory and Chelsea’s existence, Jake receives a visitor in his office…

This scene was awesome at the moment, the description of the lady seems like one that could be romantic and the plot sounded like a funny story, falling in love for the one night stand that gave you Syphilis, but Jake does not get Syphilis, he just decides that the lifestyle he’s been living is not such a healthy one, so he decides to start dating.

Despite sounding like a very good idea, this scene seems slightly unnecessary, it starts a plot that ends two chapters later and has no major consequences to the book, the story, and the characters. That is pretty the only major problem I see in this book, the rest is almost perfection.

One thing, that I think is interesting is the fluid change in Jake’s personality or his way to live life. He starts as a cold guy, a ruthless defense attorney that seems to have no feelings, and instead of just turning into this super sweet guy in two seconds, we watch him change, watch him slowly become more and more open to the idea of love and family, and also the idea of standing up for what he believes.

So after meeting Chelsea, and the kids, he understands the level of difficulty her life must be right now. But he is still stubborn, so he stays away until they start needing his help since Rory is a bit of a troublemaker. Jake starts to participate more and more in their lives and starts to make a bond, with Chelsea and all the kids.

But Jake has a past, and like most male romance characters, he doesn’t want to be his dad, and as always, that fear gets in the way.
Also, one extremely interesting case lands on his hands. He works for a major law firm in DC. His boss trusts him with a major case, a politician, who is being accused of beating his wife. The politician is the boss’s friend, and Jake has to convince a judge that the poor wife is lying. Jake went through that as a kid, but still, he continues on that case, he can’t turn it down, but he also can’t turn this woman’s life into a nightmare, even more than it already is. His past, the kids, his extreme fear of commitment, and this case, all pile on his back and start some problems.
Despite being a good problem, it was not a complex or even a super-developed plot. They don’t have a major problem, Jake has his problems, and he needs to deal with them to be with Chelsea, it is a fairly easy and simple plot, that is not a problem, just a characteristic.

This book, however, was really well developed, the characters have a nice background, one that makes you understand them. Their personalities are so complete, every kid has a different way, a different way to speak, different dilemmas, different actions on how to deal with them, and that level of character building is amazing, I wanted more books just to be able to see the kids more, cause they are amazing.

The book is sweet and funny, but slightly sad, and heavy at the same time, it deals with hard topics, such as losing both parents, being an orphan, accepting someone new in your life.
The blurb says that Chelsea is not though, I’m gonna have to disagree. She is a twenty-something woman, who was in college, who had her life on track, and she had to give up everything, to be someone’s only person. She gave up her life, to take care of her brother’s children. In less than 24 hours, she went from being a college girl, to be the mother figure for 6 kids, a teenager, with 14, two pre-teenagers, with 9, a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a months-old baby. Those were her responsibility. The house, the kids, the food, the bills, everything was on her, all the while also losing her brother. That is someone though. Needing help doesn’t mean she is not though, it only means she is not a superhero, she gets tired and sometimes she needs help, but she still is a badass.

It also touches on a hard and interesting topic. Defense attorneys. How do you defend someone you don’t believe to be innocent, how you work with people who did horrible things. Is being a partner in a big DC firm worth defending a monster? I love books that bring reflections on things I would never know for myself. Books that tell you the day-to-day of another career and other life experiences.

Again, no idea if this book is accurate on how a defense attorney works but is more of an idea than I had before, and to me, that is already awesome.

So, to wrap this book in few words: sweet, interesting, makes you reflect on important subjects, and makes you connect with each and every character on an extremely deep level. So, impressive.

So this was all I had to say for now about this book. I’ll probably read it again at some point and do another review. Now, two months after I read it, I already have another view of it, before, my grade was 10/10 and now, I gave it a 9/10, but it still has a major spot in my heart. 

That was all for today I hope you like this post, hope you enjoy this book if you decide to read it. Feel free to leave your opinion about it in the comments and I will see you next time! 

Bye sassy people! 

• I know that some comments I make about decent guys on my posts are the bare minimum a guy should do, so no, they don’t deserve to be treated like gods for doing the minimum, but at the same time, I’ve read a lot of sexist books and I appreciate authors who make characters that can serve as role models and examples of how a decent guy acts and what a loving and respectful relationship looks like. I believe we should always encourage these authors and bring attention to the ones that still write sexist characters and stories. 
• I make a lot of comments about sexism and healthy role models in books, but a lot of times these characteristics don’t make the book a bad book and definitely don’t make the author a bad author. Please never shame these authors and these books for these comments, I simply feel that we need to have awareness of the less than ideal situations some books bring us, and not use the romanticized problem as examples of what a relationship should be. Most of these authors are still amazing and the content they write doesn’t reflect directly with their personal views and opinions. Always make sure to respect and be kind to everyone, even while criticizing their content. 

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