“Two guarded hearts.
He’s breaking down walls and she’s building them higher--
A match made in Heaven, or a blueprint for disaster?
After the fiery downward spiral of senior year, Kit Talbot crash-lands on a quirky college campus where traditions rule and dorm floors act more like family. It’s just weird enough to keep her mind off the wreckage she’s leaving behind.
Enter Levi Whitaker, known as the swooniest guy on campus. Magnetic, confident, and far too much like the ex who sent her life into that PTSD-tainted nosedive. Levi seems to be everywhere, focused on her like she’s the only girl in the world--even indulging her sugar addiction with delivered treats. But Kit’s self-preservation instincts are sharper than ever, and she deflects him like Wonder Woman blocking bullets.
That is, until Levi’s quiet faith and humble apology start to break down Kit’s defenses. He loves Jesus in the dreamiest way, looks like wow, and ... somehow triggers the flashbacks she fights so hard to avoid. Every minute with him is a risk she isn’t sure she should take. Should she protect them both from the chaos of her life or learn a bravery that feels irresponsible?
As Kit fights to keep her life safe and manageable, she leans into her faith, clinging to the Bible verses God whispers to her heart. Clearly, he’s up to something, but the healing she prays for isn’t happening the way she wants.
Why is God silent on the prayer she needs most?”
Series: Book #1 in the “Mayberry University” series.
Spiritual Content- Many Scriptures are remembered, mentioned, discussed, & thought about; Many prayers (including Kit asking God to take away her memories of that night and wondering why God won’t remove her “emotional handicap”, see Negative Content Note below) & Thanking God; Talks about God & trusting Him; ’H’s are not capital when referring to God or Jesus; Kit often has Scriptures come to her mind after memorizing them as a child (usually relating to her prior thought, such as her thinking she needs to protect herself and then Psalm 62:6 coming to mind); Both Kit & Levi feel God/the Holy Spirit give them directions (such as to pray for someone); *Spoiler* Towards the end, Levi wonders if he has made Kit his anchor and prays God will be his anchor and savior instead *End of Spoiler*; *Spoiler* Kit prays at the end and gives all of her worries, nightmares, future, and Levi to God & feels lighter *End of Spoilers*; Many mentions of God, Jesus, & trusting Him; Mentions of prayers & praying; Mentions of Bibles & Bible reading; Mentions of those & events in the Bible; Mentions of Christians, loving God, & faiths; Mentions of a chapel, church services, & worship; A few mentions of church going & youth group; A few mentions of Christian schools; A couple mentions of the Holy Spirit; A mention of a tent revival; Part of the song “How He Loves” by John Mark McMillan is quoted/remembered; Levi reads “Love Does” by Bob Goff and a paragraph from it is shared;
*Note: Kit uses an AI app to help her find a Scripture (and later uses the concordance in her Bible to find another one); Kit’s dad sends her a GIF of Jesus; Kit thinks that the Cookie Monster from ’Sesame Street’ is her spirit animal; Kit thinks of having a devil and an angel on her shoulder telling her conflicting advice (but thinks that their advice is switched); Mentions of luck & being lucky; Mentions of aliens; A couple mentions of someone being the “king of Zen”; A mention of someone being transformed by “Jesus-magic”; A mention of eating like a caveman; A mention of a relationship becoming an idol.
Negative Content- Minor cussing including: a ‘dumb’, a ‘pansy’, a ‘sheesh’, a ‘wimp’, two ‘shoot’s, two ‘wicked’s (as a positive adjective for emphasis), three ‘duh’s, four ‘idiot’s, six ‘stupid’s, and seven forms of ‘suck’; Levi thinks that “forever” is a “new kind of f-word” for him; A couple lies; Eye rolling & Sarcasm; Mentions of blackmail, threats, & criminals; Mentions of nightmares; Mentions of hatred; Mentions of rumors & gossip; Mentions of tattoos (including one with a connection to a Scripture); A couple mentions of a prank that Kit’s brothers did that could have caused a car accident; A couple mentions of poker games; A couple mentions of jealousy; A couple mentions of divorce not being an option for a married couple (due to their beliefs); A mention of the death of a grandparent; A mention of a nightclub; A mention of alcohol;
*Note: Kit has PTSD after a near (sexual) assault & this plus anxiety and panic attacks are shown on-page with her remembering the guy’s words about his expectations and grabbing her neck, her jumping out of the car and running away from the guy, unable to have any guy touch her without fear and being taken back to that night and having her vision go black, panicking when it starts to rain/thunderstorm, flinching when she hears a car door slam, not sitting in the front seat of a guy’s car, & having nightmares of the night and what could have happened; Kit does not want to talk to anyone about it again after a bad experience with telling a friend (*Spoiler* who told Kit that she was asking for it and “didn’t even deserve flashbacks because nothing happened” to her, adding that it wasn’t fair Kit was spared when worse things happened to girls who don’t walk right into it *End of Spoilers*) (Kit not wanting to talk to anyone includes her mom because she doesn’t think she’ll understand or a counselor *Spoiler* but starts talking to a counselor towards the end of the book *End of Spoiler*); Because of all of this, Kit believes and says that she is broken and is ashamed that she was in that situation (someone tells her she isn’t to blame for the guy’s choices); Levi has a strained relationship with his father due to his father’s expectations and hates him for it; Kit uses an AI app to help her find a Scripture; Many mentions of pop culture references through mentions, quotes, and discussions of celebrities, singers, songs, TV shows, movies, fictional characters, & books (such as: Celebrities: Tyra Banks, Blake Lively, Marilyn Monroe, Brian Regan, James Dean, Simone Biles, Kristen Bell, Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, Fred Astaire, Liam Hemsworth, Will Smith, P.G. Wodehouse, King Charles, Emma Watson, Tom Holland, Audrey Hepburn; Singers/Bands: Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Stevie Nicks, Ben Rector, KJ Apa, Jon Foreman, NEEDTOBREATHE, Jordan Davis, Walker Hayes, Ed Sheeran, Forrest Frank, Adele, John Mark McMillan, Rich Mullins, Ben Folds; Songs: “Hips Don’t Lie”, “Never Gonna Give You Up”, “Up Again”, “I Knew You Were Trouble”, “Run the World”, “What My World Spins Around”, “New Money”, You Got It Bad”, “Thinking Out Loud”, “Sunday Best”, “Church Clap”, “Someone Like You”, “Come Fly with Me”, “You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful”, “Leaving on a Jet Plane”, “Perfectly Loved”, “Fancy Like”, “Delorean” (which Kit plays and thinks her mom would say it’s inappropriate); TV Shows: ‘The Office’, ‘Sesame Street’, ‘Baywatch’, ‘Psych’, ‘Suits’, ‘Gossip Girl’ (also including someone calling that show “trashy”), ‘Outer Banks’, ‘Gilmore Girls’, ‘Downton Abbey’, ‘The Chosen’, ‘Friends’, ‘Veronica Mars’, ‘Parks and Recreation’, ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’, ‘Bones’, ‘Jeopardy’, ‘Pushing Daisies’, ‘Alias’, ‘Saturday Night Live’; Movies: ‘The Swan Princess’, ‘Forrest Gump’, ‘Alice in Wonderland’, ‘Tangled’, the Marvel franchise, ‘Miss Congeniality’, ‘Hitch’, ‘Fiddler on the Roof’, ‘Brave’, ‘Encanto’, ‘Beauty & the Beast’, ‘The Lion King’, ‘Bruce Almighty’, ‘Twilight’, ‘Shrek’, ‘Jungle Book’, James Bond franchise, ‘Frozen’, ‘E.T.’, ‘The Notebook’, ‘Five Feet Apart’, ‘A Walk to Remember’, ‘Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!’, ‘Superman’, ‘The Matrix’, ‘Aladdin’, ‘The Sound of Music’, ‘La La Land’, ‘Back to the Future’, ‘Father of the Bride’, ’Toy Story’, ‘She’s the Man!’, ‘Mamma Mia’, ‘Up’, ‘Avengers’, ‘Avatar’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘Elf’, ‘Inside Out’; Books: ‘Shadow and Bone’, ‘Persuasion’, ‘The Fault in Our Stars’, ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’, ‘Harry Potter’, ‘The Hunger Games’, ‘The Five Love Languages’, ‘Winnie the Pooh’, ‘Pride & Prejudice’, ‘Love Does’ by Bob Goff, ‘Lord of The Rings’; Kit tries to do a better job at keeping the “questionable shows and movies at bay” when talking to her friends); Mentions of brand names (Kool-Aid, Tic Tac, L.O.L. Surprise dolls, iPhone, Disney, Netflix, Barbie, Twizzlers, KitKat, AirTags, Band-Aid, Rothy’s, Ferragamo, Neosporin, Laffy Taffy, Starburst, Ben & Jerry’s, Blue Bell Ice Cream, & Tom Ford); Mentions of places (IHOP, McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell, Home Depot, & Blockbuster); Mentions of car brands; Mentions of FaceTime; Mentions of mental illnesses & a parent having one (Capgras syndrome and taking antipsychotics); A few mentions of sports (NASCAR, NFL, & the Super Bowl); A couple mentions of horror movies; A mention of someone struggling with depression off and on; A mention of social media (Facebook); A mention of GQ; A mention of Halloween; A mention of a TikTok dance; A mention of acting like a zombie.
Sexual Content- Three head/forehead kisses, a cheek kiss, a jaw kiss, a neck kiss, three barely-above-not-detailed kisses, and a border-line semi-detailed // detailed kiss; Wanting to kiss (up to semi-detailed); Touches, Hand holding, Embraces, Flutters, Electricity, Warmth, Nearness, & Smelling (up to semi-detailed); Wanting to touch & embrace (up to semi-detailed); Flirting & Winks; Noticing & Staring (including at lips, his muscles/veins, and her hips, up to semi-detailed); Kit was nearly sexually assaulted after prom when her boyfriend at the time tried to take her to a hotel to get what he wanted (she had prior said no many times before to going there); Kit has nightmares of the night she was almost sexually assaulted and the dreams often to go what could have happened that night (no details); Kit notices that Levi is getting teased by the other guys for him chasing her, and while she wishes she could passionately kiss him in front of everyone, instead she whispers into his ear and her lips touch his ear (up to semi-detailed); Levi thinks about trying to forget Kit and distract herself with someone else that won’t send him mixed messages & tells a friend that Kit isn’t his only option (but he isn’t thinking of being serious with the other girls and knows a fling is a bad idea); Kit has a conversation with her mom about when she and her dad were dating and how their “Snowball Effect” of emotions lead into physical intimacy that was meant for marriage (adding that it caused physical bonding between them, but also emotional and spiritual bonding in special ways; Her mother still fights shame over those memories because of feeling guilty about doing things that God intended for her until after she was married; Kit’s mother also says that “the stuff between kissing and the finale” is “part of the glue that God gave for a husband and wife. To cement them together.”; Kit’s parents decided to not kiss again until they were engaged because that was the only way they could maintain their boundaries); *Spoilers* Because of this conversation, when Kit and Levi start dating, it’s implied that she asks for them not to kiss on the lips until they are engaged; The final chapter has them engaged and he asks if he can kiss her; They have an “intoxicating” kiss and Kit craves “something good, precious, sacred … a bit ahead of schedule” (referring to the conversation with her mom) *End of Spoilers*; Some of the girls call some guys a “snack” and “juicy”; Kit’s mom also calls her dad a “hunk”; Many mentions of dates, dating, boyfriends/girlfriends, exes; Many mentions of flirting, PDA, crushes, blushes, winks, & drooling over someone; Mentions of Levi attracting a lot of attention from girls, some girls touching him without his consent, & getting ribbed by other guys for not being able to get Kit to go out with him; Mentions of a serial dater & the guy having a new girl every week; Mentions of jealousy; A few mentions of girls being “all over” a guy; A couple mentions of Kit’s ex treating girls like they were “disposable”; A couple mentions of shirtless guys (including Kit thinking that Levi with no shirt is a “presumably glorious sight”); A mention of some girls being “easy” for a guy; A mention of being friends with flirting but no “benefits”; A mention of a fling; A mention of being boy crazy; A mention of having the hots for someone; Love, falling in love, & the emotions;
*Note: Kit says she has a “woman-crush” on a character from a TV show (which is played by Meghan Markle); Mentions of figures, curves, & developing (which Kit thinks about that her developing curves lead to her sobbing in a gas station bathroom after the near-assault and being told how a “pretty face and a curvy body” would make her life ten times better); Mentions of girls comparing their looks to other girls; A few mentions of butts; A mention of testosterone; A reference to the ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ back-pocket spin (when a guy sticks his hand in the back pocket of a girl’s jeans).
-Kit Talbot
-Levi Whitaker
P.O.V. switches between them
352 pages
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Pre Teens-
New Teens-
Early High School Teens-
Older High School Teens-
My personal Rating-
{ Trigger Warning: Flashbacks to a near sexual assault & main character has PTSD and anxiety because of it. }
For the first half of this book, I was a little leery of Kit. I wanted to like her, but I also wanted to tell her to pull herself together like Edna Mode to Mrs. Incredible. Perhaps that’s not the most caring or compassionate response to her trauma, but I knew she could have so much more peace by giving everything—her fears and concerns—to God. That’s a “pot meet kettle” thought somedays for me too, I know, but it was because she had potential and I wanted to see it! I wasn’t so sure about Levi for the majority of the book, but I think this was because the writing style of his chapters felt like out of a diary with gaining information on his emotions, so his parts felt a little off to me. Both of the main characters think about stupid ideas and also do some pretty stupid things that frustrated me (such as Levi agreeing that he could get any girl he wants and could hurt Kit like she’s hurt him (quickly realizing that’s not a wise idea, though) & then Kit also getting close to Levi when she notices his dorm mates are pitying and teasing him for chasing her).
I do have to note that I was a little confused for the first bit of the book because in the prologue, we have Kit prior to leaving for college and then the book starts with her already there and having made friends. There was a lot about the college/campus life and traditions, the new friends’ and their personalities, and also a lot pop culture references that felt a bit thrown at me rather than explained. On that last part, there was a ton of pop culture references and discussions—some which were lost on me and others that added nothing to the book. I have family members who burst out into song, but I don’t know anyone who quotes as much TV and movies as these characters. Some of the shows and movies were a little questionable to have mentioned in a Christian YA/NA book, in my opinion—which Kit tries to not mention so many “questionable” ones, so I appreciated that at least.
I did liked different elements of the faith content. It was very repetitive, but I think that could be realistic for a girl in Kit’s shoes after going through traumatic events. There were a couple comments/parts I personally disagree with theology-wise, but I think it was mainly because there wasn’t enough explanation with them. I liked how the ending worked out in these faith moments and the growth for the characters.
Overall, I would say I’m a bit torn on this book. I liked the ending and different parts, but it also had some parts I didn’t care for either. I can see some upper YA-age readers enjoying it. I do appreciate the conversations about trusting God and seeing the characters work out that their relationship with the Lord should come before any other relationship. I also liked how the author handled the delicate topic of guarding your emotions (and kisses) from going too far while dating. There were definitely some positives for me with this book, but one I would really only suggest for girls ages 17+ and with the caveat that those who have been through a near sexual assault like Kit may find this book helpful or triggering, depending on the girl.
See y’all on Friday with a new review!
*BFCG may (Read the review to see) recommend this book by this author. It does not mean I recommend all the books by this author.
*I received this book for free from the Author for this honest review.
