Under the Lights (Field Party)

Having both Gunner and Brady go after Willa wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but after a while I found myself getting into it and enjoying the ending of it. To be honest, I for sure thought she was gonna get with the opposite of who she actually got with in the end. All in all, a great story plot, just a bit slow at the beginning.Yet another beautiful book by Abbi Glines.

Abbi Glines' The Field Party series is back! I've been wanting to read Under the Lights ever since I met Brady in Until Friday Night (my review). I loved his character and couldn't wait to get to know him better.When I read the synopsis for Under the Lights, I was a little confused. I didn't expect a love triangle for Brady. I was worried about how this romance would go down. Love triangles aren't usually my favorite thing to read. They're normally angsty and uncomfortable. Luckily, that wasn't the case with Under the Lights. I could easily pick out who Willa should be with. I never felt uncomfortable with where the story was going, even when the characters thoughts were uncomfortable. Kudos to Glines for that! She did an amazing job writing these characters and their feelings.Brady was exactly who I expected him to be after meeting him in Until Friday Night. He was the sweet, dependable guy everyone feels comfortable around. Brady always tried to do what was in everyone's best interests, even when it went against what he truly wanted. He was a stand up guy. I do have to admit that reading his point of view annoyed me at times, though. I wanted to yell at him and tell him to stop making life easier for everyone else and be true to himself.Gunner surprised me. There was more to this blunt football player than I originally thought. (Isn't that always the case?) Gunner was your typical teen with atypical problems. He may have been a little crass, but he was still a decent person -- especially when it came to Willa.Willa was my favorite of the three characters. She had more inner strength than she gave herself credit for. Life hadn't always been kind to her and she learned some tough lessons, but she still soldiered on trying to be her best. I liked the way she handled both Brady and Gunner admitting their feelings to her.To be completely honest, I would have enjoyed this story even more without the love triangle. The odd man out's point of view felt like added material I could have done without. Not that I didn't enjoy the story. I did. The Brady-Willa-Gunner dynamic made sense based on their friendship and I liked the way they dealt with it. I just would have preferred more focus on Willa and her beau.Overall, Under the Lights was a really fun addition to The Field Party series. I'm really looking forward to After the Game, the next book in the series. I wish I didn't have to wait until sometime in 2017 for it!

3 stars — Well shoot. I can honestly say that I didn’t have as much success with this book. While there were things that I enjoyed, there were just too many other things that bugged me for it to be an enjoyable overall read. I’ll try not to get too ranty, but I do want to express the things that weren’t to this reader’s personal liking. I kind of noticed this in the first book, but it appears that Ms. Glines likes to ride the line for me…maybe for many. And depending on where that line is for you personally, she might go over it or she might not. In the first book she definitely rode my line, but I gave her a pass on a few things hoping that they weren’t going to be trends, as well as the fact that there was so much ELSE that I loved about the book…make sense? Anyways, in this book Ms. Glines fell right over my personal line, on a few issues.OK, first things first, I don’t think I really paid attention to the blurb, I just got it when it was on sale because it was in the series and I crossed my fingers I was going to like the series. But if I had paid closer attention to the blurb, I might have been more leery. I’m not usually a fan of love triangles. It takes a VERY SPECIAL author to make that OK for me. Now, honestly? This wasn’t actually a bad love triangle. At least in terms of leading people on, potentially cheating, or falling in love with both choices and one getting hurt. So all the normal things that make a love triangle icky for me actually weren’t there. But I also didn’t see the point. I felt like the story would have actually been STRONGER without it taking up so much space in the narrative. I already knew which boy she would end up with, b/c I had seen who book 3 was going to be about. And so having a good number of chapters from (spoilers?) Brady’s POV actually just made me dislike Brady…which is a bummer. He was a dick to Ivy, hearing him call himself a good guy while he’s being an jerk did not endear himself to me. And I wasn’t impressed with his feelings for Willa. I will admit, that he at least had a mini growth spurt at the end of the book in how he supported Gunner, but now I’m not sure how he’s going to redeem himself in general. Course, I’m still curious.As for the two characters that *should* have had most of the focus, let’s start with Gunner. He had a pretty crap situation, but the more I learned, the more over the top the whole thing became, and the more detached I became from him. There were many opportunities for me to feel for him and what he was going through, and I just…didn’t really. Or least not enough. I didn’t see as much growth as I would have liked from him…I didn’t see his caring, I didn’t see these redeeming qualities that Willa and Nonna saw. He was a terrible friend really, he treated women horribly, and he had zero coping mechanisms. I get that how he grew up shaped him, but I needed to see something more to fall in love with him. And I just didn’t. I didn’t hate him, but I didn’t feel for him nearly as much as I think I was supposed to. I will admit that he made me laugh sometimes though.Then there’s Willa. I felt glimmers of attachment to her too, but then they kind of went nowhere as well. Maybe because the story was split between 3 characters, I didn’t get as much time in her head? I did feel for what her mother did to her, and I did feel for the tragedy she went through, but I had a major personal beef with that whole storyline that I think it prevented me from going all in with Willa as well. And really, there just wasn’t much about her personality that we got to see. She had some funny one-liners, but I just don’t really know what she was like.I know I was supposed to love Nonna, but I just didn’t…I didn’t hate her or anything, but I was disappointed in the way she treated Willa. I guess it’s human, after what she went through with Willa’s Mom, but having raised Willa for so much of her life, you would think Willa would have earned some trust. Half the time Nonna understood that Willa was nothing like her mother, and she would say nice things…and the other half…well, I don’t know. There just felt like opportunities missed there.And before I get onto spoilery things, the major thing that’s proving to be a problem in this series is that other than the female main characters in BOTH stories, there are NO OTHER good female characters. I get that it’s a small town, but really? The way the other girls are described are such stereotypical mean girl/slut-shaming stuff, it’s so ridiculously disappointing…and not to make a judgement call (though I guess I am making one), but it feels like lazy writing. Also, it really does not paint any of these boys in a great light with the way they treat the girls in their school. I was not impressed by this in the first book, and we just got to see even more of it here. NOT A FAN.OK, the next 2 things are spoilery, so skip the rest if you don’t want to be spoiled.I have a HUGE personal beef with the way Willa’s tragedy was represented. I absolutely HATE that people still view pot as worse than alcohol, and the evil of all evils. I don’t care if you have a problem with it AS LONG as you also have a problem with alcohol. Because, let’s be real: alcohol is just as bad if not worse than pot. So when you write a book where all of the teenagers are hanging out drinking every weekend, and it appears that they occasionally drink and drive, and it’s not looked upon in a negative way, and there are NO CONSEQUENCES to this whatsoever…and then you make it so that when Willa and her friends are drinking and smoking pot, and a child dies, and you lightly touch on the drinking, but focus heavily on the smoking as the reason they were inattentive “because pot makes it so you don’t care about anything”…Grrr NO. NO. NO NO NO. I’m not saying that I think teenagers should be smoking pot…or drinking alcohol. But stop pushing this kind of propaganda, it’s not helping teens make responsible choices. The tragedy would have happened if all they’d been doing is drinking alcohol. FOR REALZ. It’s about irresponsibility. Sorry, it just pisses me off when people are fine with alcohol abuse, but see pot as the devil drug. God. Sorry, rant rant rant.Also, as a side note? I wasn’t super happy with the way some of the other little things were addressed in this book either: like the suicide, or believing someone about rape.The OTHER thing is that ending!! WTF??? Nothing was resolved!! That was not a complete book! What happens next?? Geez, that’s not cool.OK, so now that I’ve let out all my negative emotions, I’m going to shock the crap out of you guys. I’m probably going to read the next book. I want Brady to get the chance to redeem himself (and I hope he does), and I’m super curious about Riley. But we’ll see which side of my line Ms. Glines stays on…I’ll be bummed if she crosses it again, b/c I’m most looking forward to Nash’s book, but what are you gonna do? At least they read fast.

After reading the first book I was very invested in Maggie's story. I thought there was a lot of room to explore her past and how she continues to cope with it. Unfortunately she is sidelined and is only mentioned a couple of times. One of these times she is described only because its unusual that she was mute.This leads me onto Wila, who similarly has a tragic past with a recent traumatic incident. Once again her past isn't really explored very well. I'm finding it hard to describe but it's like the female leads are only there to relate to the trauma / difficulty the male lead is having. It is starting to feel like their problems aren't as discussed as the male protagonist.It also seems like their trauma is their whole personality. What do we really know about Maggie and Wila, that they've had a hard past and they like reading books. Even Riley is only mentioned in the first two books because of her problems and how it affects the male lead casts. We know literally nothing else. Maybe thats to make her mysterious but because all the other female characters aren't explored it leads me to believe that the trend will continue.On another note, the ending was very abrupt.

I had high expectations for this Book as I loved the first book about Maggie and West. This book just didn't grab me though, it felt rushed. Willa was only back five minutes and she was in love with Gunner. Whilst I appreciate they had been childhood friends it just didn't flow right for me. I didn't feel that love grow between them, not like you do with Maggie and West. The characters were great and the basic plot had potential but I felt this was a huge let down from the first book. I also feel the ending was a bit strange. I am undecided if I will now buy book three as this one left me feeling unenamoured.

Absolutely loved this series. I'd definitely recommend reading all books in the series. These are my favourite books of hers!

I zoomed through this book like crazy. I think it's the quickest that I have ever finished a book, which is really saying something. When I say I couldn't put it down, I really mean it, I was out of control. I enjoyed the first book but this one was way better in my opinion. I just loved it! And I kinda get the Abbi Glines hype now. I am super excited for the third instalment coming out this month.5/5 Stars

Another good book in the series. Gunners life is not all it seems to outsiders. Will a returns to town to live with her nonna, after a devastating event happened in her life. Can the two sort their lives out, they have so much to sort out with parents who do not even love them