UPDATE: 
 Coming back and bumping this rating down (around 1.5-2 stars) because.......no. I'm sorry. I can't. Every time I saw this on my shelf it just made me feel upset thinking about it because I could only think of the things I really didn't like about this book. 
 I just donated a bunch of books last weekend and this was one of them, and I'm honestly so glad it's finally out of my sight. 
 I feel like I'll never be satisfied with the rating I give with this though. Although this book had many things that made me pretty angry and upset, I still don't feel like it should be getting the lowest score because there were things that I liked about it. If they took away the main thing that bothered me about the book, I would have really enjoyed it and gave it a fairly good rating. However, this one probably made me feel a lot angrier compared to some of the books I gave a 1 star rating to. 
 Oh well..........can't do anything about it. I'm going to try my best to move on from this one now and not come back to it. 
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 Ugh oh man.....I got a lot of stuff to say about this book right here......a ranty review will be coming up in just a bit. 
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 I was REALLY REALLY tempted to give this book 1-2 stars. Before I get into the one big issue I had with it, I just want to outline the reason why I gave it a higher ranking: 
 I didn't hate all the characters. In fact, I actually really liked Samantha and Jase as a couple. They click really well together. Samantha as a main character was really great, and Jase was one of the most likeable love interests I have ever read about. I loved seeing their relationship grow throughout the story. 
 I love all of the Garretts, and I even ended up really liking Tim at the end. All of these characters were just so likeable for me that I just couldn't give it an extremely low rating. It just wouldn't be fair for the part of me that loves these characters. 
 HOWEVER, this book made me realize the one "trope" that bothers me so much in books these days, especially in contemporaries: the absence of parents or good parenting (though more for the latter). 
 A lot of stories play along with the whole "dead parents" story line, which has been so overused that it doesn't even phase me much anymore. Lately though I have been coming across so many books where there are parents (at least one parent) in the life of the main character. They're there....but not actually there.... They play significant roles in the plot sometimes and show up/are mentioned quite a bit in the story, but not because they're actually that important. It's because of their crap jobs as parents. 
 No. I am not a parent. Not even close to that time of my life yet. 
 Yes. I know parenthood is difficult in reality and not everyone can be the perfect parents. 
 But ugh................. 
 Grace Reed. This mother. The way she acted throughout this entire book just ticked me off so much. 
 Yes lady, I get you had a rough time raising two daughters as a single mother. Sure, I guess you made what you think was your best effort. But SERIOUSLY? This is the best you can be as a parent? After raising these girls for almost two decades of your life on your own? 
 She couldn't even take a single dang hint the whole time. Honestly, she was acting more immature than her own daughters imo. All she was concerned about was herself. Not once did she care about her own daughters' lives. Not once did she even bother to care. 
 I wasn't even halfway through the book and Mrs Reed already pissed me off. I kept reading to the end for Sam and Jase and Tim and the Garretts, but almost ANY scene that involved Sam's mom I skimmed through with occasional groaning. 
 What I hate the most is that she doesn't even show any actual change by the end of it all. Sure she TRIES to redeem herself, but in the end she still runs away from her problems and tries to push it all away from her mind. 
 -_-........ 
 Ugh. Anyways, rant done. I think I need to try my best to avoid contemporaries where there's bad parenting for a while so that I don't get as rioted up like this about it so much.... This made me so upset.