Review: Good for You (Between the Lines Bk #3) by Tammara Webber

Reid Alexander's life is an open book. His Hollywood celebrity means that everything he does plays out in the public eye. Every relationship, every error in judgment is analyzed by strangers. His latest mistake totaled his car, destroyed a house and landed him in the hospital. Now his PR team is working overtime to salvage his image. One thing is clear—this is one predicament he won’t escape without paying for it.

Dori Cantrell is a genuine humanitarian—the outward opposite of everything Reid is about. When his DUI plea bargain lands him under her community service supervision, she proves unimpressed with his status and indifferent to his proximity, and he soon wants nothing more than to knock her off of her pedestal and prove she's human.

Counting the days until his month of service is over, Dori struggles to ignore his wicked magnetic pull while shocking him with her ability to see past his celebrity and challenging him to see his own wasted potential. But Dori has secrets of her own, safely locked away until one night turns her entire world upside down. Suddenly their only hope for connection and redemption hinges on one choice: whether or not to have faith in each other. (YA - Mature young adults)

Note: SPOILER WARNING! There are no spoilers for Good for You but there are a few for Between the Lines and Where You Are if you haven't read the first two books in the series yet. My reviews are linked at the end of this post.

Review:

There isn't a character we know better from Tammara Webber's Between the Lines series than Reid Alexander . Reid has always been the one constant. Even when the books were about another couple, we've always gotten his POV. Now we finally get to see his story play out.

In Between the Lines he was a womanizing, hard partying actor with a huge ego who considered trying to act better to win a good girl. In Wherever You Are he was a womanizing, hard partying actor with huge ego who committed his first selfless act for someone else. I adore Reid Alexander as a character and I've enjoyed watching him evolve over the series but I do not swoon for Reid. He's a jerk. Could he win me over in the end?

Reid, driving drunk, crashes his Porsche into a house and now has to pay the piper. His license is taken away and he has to perform community service for Habitat for Humanity. He reports to duty reporting to  Dori Cantrell, a true humanitarian and someone with a very good bullshit detector. That doesn't bode well for Reid.

Although I enjoyed both Dori and Reid along with their tension filled banter, it felt like a little bit of a retread of Reid's attraction to his former costar Emma in Book #1. Emma was the only other girl who didn't melt under his advances so of course that's the type of girl he wants the most.

As an actor Reid knows people. He observes them and learns how to manipulate them. When he first realized that he liked Emma in Between the Lines, he wanted to be the type of guy she could like. Unfortunately even though his intentions were good he wasn't ready yet or maybe Emma wasn't the right girl. He was playing the part of a good guy, he hadn't really become one so of course he fell off the wagon as it were.

Dori made Reid want to change for REID. Sure his goal was to get Dori but she made him aware of the man he could be. To do it for himself, not for her, not for the cameras and not to win a game. This is what won me over in accepting them as a couple.

Dori could not be more different from Reid but she's suffering from a past romantic heart break and a crisis of faith. It was interesting to watch them break through their barriers together.

Although Dori is new to the series, she was very well developed and a complex character trying to live up to the altruistic standards her family embraces. I loved how Dori's family was an integral part of the story and not used as background decoration.

The Between the Lines series really should be taken as a whole. Even though each book is about a different relationship, there are common elements and characters throughout. Each book shows a progression and maturity of the characters. The first book was about wild teenage inhibition, the second (Wherever You Are) about commitment and responsibility and the third about personal redemption and acceptance. My opinion of each character changed over the series too. Someone you hate in one book, you might enjoy in the next.

I'm going to sound like a broken record because I've always mentioned this in all of my reviews for the series but I have to repeat it. Tammara Webber takes her characters on a sometimes infuriating ride with complete and utter honesty. I sometimes feel like there is no writer involved, that I'm really just watching their life play out. I want to rush them to their conclusion or whack them upside the head for taking so long but their actions are always 100% true to them and feel honest.

I was happy with the conclusion to Reid's story and yes, he won me over in the end. There are a few hints of maybe one more book to the series. Brooke, Reid's ex, makes a brief reappearance. Now if Tammara can make me like Brooke again then she is a miracle worker!

Rating: 3.5 out of 4 Great series. One of my favorites of 2011.

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Source: Provided by the author for my honest review

Buy the book!
Book #1 - Between the Lines - Ebook $2.99
Book #2 - Where You Are - Ebook $2.99

Book #3 - Good for You - Ebook $2.99

Reviews for the series:
Between the Lines -
Where you Are -