**Disclaimer: I received a free eARC of Even If It Breaks Your Heart by Erin Hahn through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this opportunity.
Even If It Breaks Your Heart by Erin Hahn is a young adult contemporary romance. It features Winnie and Case who are both dealing with their own issues but bond over their love of rodeo. It was published on February 6th, 2024. I rated it 4 stars on Goodreads.
Here’s the summary from Goodreads:
A heart-buckling ride of a romance by beloved author Erin Hahn, Even If It Breaks Your Heart is about two teens finding out that sometimes, the hardest part of discovering what you want is getting the courage to pursue it.
The only thing keeping nineteen-year-old Case Michaels together after the death of his best friend, Walker, is a list Walker left behind of things he wants Case to accomplish in his absence. So far, though, Case hasn’t even been able to continue riding bulls in the rodeo circuit, something he’s done his entire life, balking at the thought of competing without Walker by his side. But the list? Case is determined to follow it to the letter– and he follows it all the way to Winnie Sutton.
Eighteen-year-old Winnie Sutton just wants to keep her family together. She graduated high school early to work long shifts at the Michaels family ranch so she can support her younger siblings and a father who’s more than happy to let Winnie fill the responsible parent role. If she sometimes sneaks out to ride the horses herself and forget about life for a while– well, that’s no one else’s business– until the day she crashes headfirst into Case Michaels. Case sees her riding skills and immediately ropes her into competing for the ranch and becoming his friend.
Winnie and Case couldn’t be more different, but Case can’t help but be inspired by Winnie’s badly-hidden passion for riding and competition. And there’s something about Case that makes Winnie want to try grasping onto a dream for herself, whether that’s a shot at a rodeo trophy, the annoyingly handsome rancher’s son who won’t leave her alone, or maybe both.
Erin Hahn is one of my favourite romance writers, and also one of the first authors that I had been able to request and review from NetGalley. You can find my review for You’d Be Mine here, More Than Maybe here, Never Saw You Coming here, and Built to Last here. She honestly continues to wow me with the books that she writes and the way that she builds romance. I know it’s pretty classic in romances to give you the perspective of both sides of the love story, but I do really love the way that she develops her two main characters and the way that she intertwines her various stories. There’s something about her dual perspectives that really hits the spot for me. Her male main characters are some of my all time favourite love interests in romance.
I know very little about the rodeo, but I found it a really interesting element of this story. It was really cool to see how it became a bit of a bonding point for Winnie and Case, even though they compete in very different events. Erin Hahn did a really good job at explaining the elements of the rodeo that were important to the story, and I definitely have a better understanding of what barrel racing is now that I have read this book. That’s definitely not the point of the narrative, but it was an unexpected benefit of the story. I also have learned more about bull riding too, though it sounds horribly dangerous.
Both of our main characters in this novel were really interesting and well-developed. They both felt well-fleshed out and very well-developed. I liked the progression of their character growth and seeing them learn more about themselves. They both start off the novel in a place where they’re really struggling with something. In Case’s case it is grief over the loss of his best friend. For Winnie, it’s the fact that she is functionally the only parent her younger siblings have. These are heavy things for a teen to deal with, but they handle them as best they can as teenagers might. There is a deep emotion to the novel that is brought in by these elements.
The writing is beautiful. The story felt realistic, and the teens read as teens. I love the way that she plotted it out and how the events flowed naturally, and the consequences for certain events made sense. It didn’t feel like the story was being forced. That being said, I do think this is a very character-driven novel, and it focussed more on them developing and growing then on typical big conflicts. The conflict they dealt with was very personal and allowed them to become better people or push themselves out of their comfort zone. This isn’t a complaint by any means; I just think that it’s something worth noting.
If you like romance, rodeo stories, or character driven stories, then I highly suggest you pick this book up.
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