My first blog tour for the year (and in a while actually) is Keep the Faith by Ana Tejano! Guys, I have so much love for this book and I couldn't seriously express all my feels but here's my review! Thank you Ana for having me!
Title: Keep the Faith
Author: Ana Tejano
Series: Standalone
Edition: Kindle
Publication: July 31st 2016
Source: Kindle copy provided by the author
Genre: New Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Synopsis:
As a community development worker, Faith was quite familiar with heartbreak and recovery after all the time she spent on disaster relief missions. So when her five-year relationship ends right before she left for a mission trip to a typhoon-stricken town in Iloilo, she tries not to make a big deal out of it. How can she be broken up about a breakup when she’s with people who literally lost everything?
But now that she’s back, all Faith wants is for her life to go back to normal and have people stop looking at her with pity. Never mind that she still has a lot of questions about the breakup, or that she feels a tiny ache every time her ex comes up in conversations. She’s okay now, and happily distracted by Nico Tamayo, the attractive new guy at work.
With new possibilities in the horizon, Faith thinks she is well on her way to moving on. But when her past comes calling back to her, will all the good things in her present be enough to keep her on the path? Or will she finally learn that there was more to heartbreak and recovery than what she knows?
PURCHASE THE BOOK HERE:
Whoa. I just finished reading Keep the Faith by Ana Tejano a few minutes ago and WHOAMYGOD, I didn't know that it would affect me this hard. I am literally ugly sobbing right now because of these emotions I couldn't handle all at once. It was such an amazing story that it massacred my heart and I think I will never recover. This book guys, it hit home and this one means the world to me. I am absolutely surprised how deeply in love I am with this story. Tejano writes so beautifully, it felt as if I am reading a 400-page novel when in reality, this is such a short one. There was no rush in it and I felt it in my bones how the story unfolded, how the characters developed and how my heart crushed. This one legit took me by surprise and swept me off of my feet. Words are not enough for me to express how gripping this one was. My God, it's truly beautifully written I cannot reiterate it enough.
Keep the Faith is a story about Faith who was trying to move on from James. Her ex-boyfriend of 5 years dumped her before she left for Iloilo. Reasons for the break-up she's unsure of but in IloIlo, she tries to bury the breakup at the back of her mind because she's in denial. As a community development worker, focusing on helping others took most of her attention thus unable to really face the finality of her relationship, her broken heart. When she got back to Manila, most of the people around her were so careful about mentioning her ex. It appeared as if people wanted to cage her so she won't get hurt much further by which only aggravated her denials. Then she meets a new employee, Nico. A possible rebound. Who knows? But everything went haywire from there.
The story mirrored my past feelings. I am all too familiar with the confusion, betrayal, false hopes, denial and anger enveloped in the story. There's no easy way to move on and it differs for each one of us but
Keep the Faith made me relive the feelings. This book reminded me that those feelings were real, that those feelings made me a better person and those feelings are packaged with moments I would surely have with me for the rest of my life.
Keep the Faith is as relatable as it gets and I am so thankful that I was given the opportunity to read such riveting story. The grief and the loss are two absolute reflections of our lives and it can't get any truer than that.
Would have given the book 8 stars if only the story ended at 91%. I just think that sometimes, not all stories have to end the way this has ended. And the full names. What's really up with the full names.
Keep the Faith just went up as my second favorite contemporary romance of all time. I am still incoherent because I am in awe. Tejano's writing style is so flawless and spontaneous. I wish I could write like that! And don't judge this book for being a thin one, you'd be surprised how heavy the feels it could throw right at your face! This book certainly set the bar high for Romance Class books and I am so thrilled know what's in store for me in my next Tejano book!
I loved Keep the Faith. I LOVED IT SO SO DAMN MUCH MY WHOLE LIFE ACHES. Strikingly executed and emotionally direct, it's a story that will touch your heart in unforgettable ways. READ THIS NOW!
Thank you Ana for sending me the Kindle copy!
"One thing so terrible about a relationship ending is you end up with having so much love left in your heart and no one to receive it."
"The thing about heartbreak, I realized, is it's not really about waiting for things to stop hurting before you start moving. A broken heart can and will heal in time, but for time to actually do its job, I needed to acknowledge what I had lost and move on. However, I knew it was going to take a while - that the road would be littered with bumps and possibly smaller heartbreaks that would punch me in the gut and make me grieve again.
Even with all the truths I held in my heart, there were so many uncertainties left and so many things that I had to learn over again on my own. I didn't know if things would turn out the way I wanted then to, until I got there. For now, all I needed to do was to keep moving, because at the one of the day, uncertainties were simply an exercise in faith."
