This was a so-so read for me. It's actually about a 2.5 star, but I rounded up. 
 Here's what I liked: 
 The setting. I mean, who doesn't like the beach? Come on. I'm always a sucker for stories about the beach. I just love all the description of the smells, sights, the feelings of the breezes and sand and sticky, sweaty bodies. Love. 
 Mrs Ellington. This old lady was great. I honestly wish her part in the story had been bigger. 
 Cass with Emory. OMG. This was really the only thing that made me swoon. Cass was soooooooooo sweet and sincere with this little boy. I loved their scenes so much. 
 What I didn't like: 
 Gwen. Honestly? She was just so boring to me. She really didn't have much of a personality, and she didn't really make me feel much but annoyance. I mean, she wasn't a BAD character, just dull. The only time I felt anything real from her was when she found out about her friend. That's it. 
 The constant withholding of information. Now, I get why authors do this, but it really needs to be something shocking or massively important. The stuff withheld here was important, but wasn't nearly shocking enough to make me go: OMG! I can't believe that! I was honestly like: is that it? I felt like it was kind of unrealistic for her to even talk to Cass after what happened (or what she thought happened.) I also thought it was unrealistic that he didn't try to correct her EVERY SINGLE TIME they spoke after that. 
 The fade-to-blacks. Every time. I thought it remembered her first book having a bit more to the love scenes. Seeing as sex was such a central, "important" thing here, I figured we'd get a little more. I don't expect all-out porn in a YA book, but fade-to-blacks are SERIOUSLY annoying. You can't have a book with sex being a major theme without there being some sex in it. This book cut off every single scene before anything even started. I honestly wasn't sure people were having sex until it was "hinted" at later. 
 The writing style. I really don't remember disliking this in her first book. I know there were things I didn't like, but I swooned so hard at Jase that I must have overlooked it. But I really don't care for this author's style. There are a lot of fragments that shouldn't be there. Fragments are acceptable in fiction writing, but only when they're used for emphasis. This author uses A LOT. So many that I sometimes got lost with what she was trying to say. 
 The plot. Honestly? Nothing really happened. There was no plot. I kept waiting and wondering when SOMETHING was going to happen, and then the only big thing to occur happened to someone else! And we didn't even get to really see it go down. 
 The romance. I felt no chemistry between Cass and Gwen. I'm not sure if that had more to so with the writing style or if these two characters weren't really all that developed. I felt that with ALL of the characters, we only got surface. They all felt one-dimensional. Like, there was so much more I hoped I'd learn but never did. That was the romance to me too. It was just surface, so I had a hard time buying it at all. 
 In the end, this story was just meh for me. It was boring. It had so much potential to be amazing, but it just wasn't for me. It looks like many people disagree with my feelings, so take them with a grain of salt, but I wasn't impressed with this one.