This was a sweet romantic read full of heart. I adored the characters and the twists and turns the relationships took. This is a story full of heart, friendship, love and family. I found myself cheering for different characters at different times in the book and I was honestly unsure exactly where the author was heading. I will definitely look for more books by Firkins!

DNF @ 45%. I really, really loved the premise of this book - Jane Austen retellings are my JAM, Edie was an adorable character, and the voice in which it was written was a bit geeky in a way that is incredibly appealing to me. I was hooked, too - I wanted to know which of the two boys in her life Edie would end up with. (I've never read "Mansfield Park," so I had no idea, although I had a definite idea of who I was rooting for.) So, by all means, I should have adored this book, and I definitely would have, had it not been for the fact that its content was a bit more...salty than I expected.

Read: approximately every other line of this novel involves a character thinking, partaking in (off-page, but alluded to over and over and OVER), or talking about sex.

It seemed to be the only thing on every character's mind, to the point that it was uncomfortable to read. Suffice to say it that when a character starts having recurring sexual dreams about her crush on-page, I'm out. That happened to Edie about three times in the first half, and I was wildly uncomfortable with all of them.

I ran into this debacle because, for some reason (and this is entirely my fault for a misplaced assumption), I thought that this being a retelling of a classic would make it a bit freer of the adult content that I'm not super comfortable reading. Most retellings that I've read have a lot less adult content than regular teen rom-coms, so I falsely assumed that this would be the same way. Not so. The failure to anticipate that this book might be a bit on the "no thanks" side for me was not in any way the author's fault; Firkins has a fantastic writing style and "Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things" had a great premise. Nope. I should have been a little more careful in analyzing this before I requested it to make sure it was something I felt okay with reading to completion. It's hard to write such a negative review of this book because I actually loved it - the plot, the characters, the setting, the literary references - but for the aforementioned reasons, it ultimately wasn't for me.

But with said dream scenes, everyone cheating on everyone else, constant hook-ups, and some other considerations (boatloads of underage drinking)...not my cup of tea.

Edie Price has been rescued from foster care by her wealthy aunt and uncle who care more about looking like do-gooders than they do about her. She moves in with them for the end of her senior year, right next door to her childhood best friend and first crush, Sebastian. Unfortunately, he's got a girlfriend. Despite the fact that Edie can't stop thinking about him, she's absolutely not going to come between him and Claire. She distracts herself with Claire's brother, Henry, who leaves a trail of broken hearts in his wake (including the hearts of Edie's 2 cousins, Maria and Julia) and is way too charming to be taken seriously...and yet despite herself, Edie finds herself falling for him. Can she move on for real to a guy she's not sure she can trust, or will her heart keep her tied to a guy she's not sure she can have?

Full disclosure: I have never read Mansfield Park. This is a modern retelling, which meant nothing to me aside from the fact that I knew MP was widely considered to be Jane Austen's least popular book. And after reading this version, I can totally see why. Edie is a very wishy-washy character. She's kind of blah and doesn't really change through the course of the book. You want her to have learned lessons and grown up a little, and she mostly doesn't. To this author's credit, though, she DOES try to have Edie mature in the way she handles friendships and her plans for college...she worked with what she had, while still trying to stay true to Austen's original plot.

Sebastian is also kind of meh. He's mostly spineless, letting his family and his girlfriend make decisions for him. Edie's memories of him as a child with a great imagination are far more interesting than present-day Sebastian. He wears lots of wrinkled linen and secretly wants more from his life than the future as an attorney that's been mapped out for him, but he's just kind of sitting there, waiting for it all to change. LAME. But again, I will say that Firkins tried to give him a little bit of a personality when she could. She tried, but I still found Sebastian to be seriously lacking.

Now Henry. OHHHH HENRY. Henry is who this book is about. He's charming, he's swoony, and he's got a wicked sense of humor. He's definitely flawed, used to charming people into doing his bidding and using his wealth to get what he wants. But man, he is HOT. The countdown of 10 seconds as he and Edie are leaning against the house? HOLY CRAP. Nothing actually happens, but WOW so very hot. I don't think I'd be wrong in thinking that this author also prefers Henry to Sebastian (and maybe Jane Austen did, too), as he is so much more interesting and fully-formed as a character. Team Henry all the way.

BOO to Jane Austen for doing with this story and these characters what she did, because it absolutely did not go the way I wanted it to. HOWEVER. I can't blame Jacqueline Firkins for Austen's bad plot choices. So, I will say that despite knowing nothing about this story going in and kind of being pissed off throughout because I knew it wasn't going to end the way I would have chosen, I still super enjoyed it. The banter was great (I especially loved the exchange of "man walks into a bar" jokes), and even the obnoxious characters were well-written. I didn't think I was going to get sucked into this book because so many of the characters are unlikeable (damn it, Jane), but it's a testament to this author that I absolutely did.

So, to sum up: well done, Jacqueline Firkins! I'll definitely check out future books by this author.

PS...Henry was robbed.

***Thanks to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children's Book Group for the great ARC in exchange for my honest review!***

Have sent message to publisher that I am only able to read mobi files. I have tried a download only file reader and it just doesnt work correctly.

I am a bit upset that books like this are fed back as "non reviews" and that then in turn it affects my review ratio badly. I am never going to get a review ratio improvement at all unless somewhere within the details we are told that the galley is a download only or non-mobi prior to the requesting process.

Sorry I am unable to read this book.