Right
off the bat, I have to say that as much as I loved Appealed, and while I thought that it was a fantastic ending
to the Legal Briefs series, I still
wasn’t quite ready for the series to end; mainly because I was loving the
series so much. That’s definitely one of the main reasons why I was really excited
when Emma Chase announced that she had written a novella for the Legal Briefs series. While I did think
that Appealed was a great way to end
the Legal Briefs series, I think that
Sidebarred was an even better ending to the series.
Prior
to Sidebarred’s release, I initially got
the impression that Emma Chase had written the novella with the story shifting
back and forth between each of the main characters from the series. It was only
a few weeks before Sidebarred’s
release that I found out that that wasn’t the case, and that Sidebarred was written solely from Jake’s
point of view. Personally, as much as I love Stanton, Sofia and Brent, I think
that Jake was definitely the perfect choice when it comes to which character
from the series should be the protagonist of Sidebarred. At its core, the character development and internal
conflict that Jake underwent throughout Sustained
was all about wanting to be a part of Chelsea and the kids’ lives, while also
thinking that he wasn’t capable of being a family man with a wife and kids.
Sustained pretty much ended with Jake
realizing that he had become a family man without even realizing it, thanks
largely in part to the “intervention” that Stanton, Sofia and Brent had for
him. I love that we got a brief glimpse in one scene from Appealed of what Jake was like after he had embraced the idea of
being a family man, with him acting like a protective father to one of the
teenage girls in the family when she came to his work with him, and there was a
boy there that could have easily made advances towards her. However, that whole
scene was written from Brent’s point of view, so we didn’t get that much
insight into what had happened with Jake, Chelsea and the kids after Sustained ended. That being said, Emma
Chase did a fantastic job of really giving the readers of the Legal Briefs series an in depth look at
Jake’s life as a husband to Chelsea, and a father figure to Chelsea’s nieces
and nephews in Sidebarred.
When
it comes to the plot of Sidebarred, while
I’m not sure that the plot and the book as a whole would have worked as well
had it been a full-length novel; I thought that it worked perfectly as a
novella. The reason I say this is because while Jake and Chelsea do face various
problems throughout the book that were genuinely interesting and got me
completely invested in the story, the plot of the book and the conflict that
Jake and Chelsea face in Sidebarred
wasn’t big and dramatic enough to sustain a full-length novel, in my opinion. The
plot of the book revolves primarily around the fact that Jake and Chelsea
decide to have a baby after Chelsea had thought that she might be pregnant,
only to discover that she wasn’t pregnant after all when she took a pregnancy
test. I could be wrong about the exact timespan of the book, but Sidebarred takes place over the span of
about a year and follows Jake and Chelsea as they try to get pregnant and then
follows them through the pregnancy, while they also deal with problems involving
the kids and their work. Nothing truly dramatic happens to them or any of the
other characters throughout the book. Honestly, I’m perfectly okay with that
because I think that the problems that Jake and Chelsea face both as a couple, as
the problems that they deal with individually, while also raising Chelsea’s six
nieces and nephews, are all very relatable. Plus, I’m really glad that Chase
didn’t have Jake and Chelsea dealing with any major drama and angst in their
marriage, such as having one of them cheat on the other, or at least be tempted
to cheat.
Much
like I thought Chase did a fantastic job of taking advantage of the overt
storytelling opportunities that Chelsea having six nieces and nephews that were
a relatively wide range of ages presented in Sustained, I thought she did a great job of that in Sidebarred as well. It was really
interesting to see what all of the kids were like now that they were several
years older. Chase definitely did a great job of showing how Jake has grown and
changed as a person now that he and Chelsea are married and are raising
Chelsea’s six nieces and nephews together, with Jake essentially serving as the
father figure in the kids’ lives; while also keeping the writing for Jake very
consistent with what he was like in Sustained.
I
have to admit that there were a couple times throughout the book where I
thought that Chase was foreshadowing the idea that something bad was going to
happen to Chelsea and the baby. First, Jake discovered that Raymond had
researched statistics about pregnant women being murdered or dying from
pregnancy related complications. Second, Jake and Chelsea have a conversation
at one point in the book where Jake tells Chelsea that he would choose to save
her life if she and the baby ended up in a situation where both of their lives
were in danger, and a choice had to made about saving one over the other. However,
Chelsea said that she would want him to pick the baby over her, but Jake told
her that he would still choose to save her.
I
hate to give away too many spoilers regarding the ending of the book, but
ultimately nothing bad happened to Chelsea or the baby. I will say that the
circumstances of the baby’s birth were pretty interesting, though. Personally,
I’m really glad that nothing bad actually happened to Chelsea or the baby. It
would have been pretty upsetting to me if Chase had decided to write another
book for the Legal Briefs series,
only to have something bad happen to Jake, Chelsea, or any of the characters
from the series. I’m also really glad that she didn’t have anything incredibly
dramatic happen with any of the couples from the series; such as have them
break up, or have one of the characters die. That just would have been way too,
“How I Met Your Mother” for me, and as I said in my review for Tangled, I don’t want to be reminded
of the series finale of How I Met Your
Mother when I’m reading Emma Chase’s books, or any book for that matter.
One
of the things that I found myself thinking about a lot as I was reading Sidebarred was my thoughts on Tied and how it served as the ending to
the Tangled series. If you’ve read my review for Tied, you know
that I wasn’t the biggest fan of the book. As far as I’m concerned, Tied just didn’t have enough genuinely
compelling material to make a truly good book. While I’m really happy that the Tangled series ended with Drew and Kate
getting married, a lot of what happens in Tied
really came across as boring, contrived and frustrating filler. If Chase really
wanted to write about Drew and Kate’s wedding, I really think that she should
have either written a short story about Drew and Kate’s wedding day, or she
should have at least condensed the story down to a novella. Personally, I
really could have done without the five minute plot cul-de-sac that involved
Drew waking up hung-over and finding a girl in his hotel room, initially
thinking that he had slept with her, only to quickly find out that he hadn’t
slept with her after all; and that the girl was actually there with Billy,
because they had gotten married. Don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad that Chase
resolved Drew’s rivalry with Billy in Tied,
but I definitely think that could have been handled a lot better.
Getting
back to the subject of Sidebarred,
once again without giving away too many spoilers regarding the ending of the
book, as much as I loved the epilogue of Appealed
and thought that it was really cute; I loved the epilogue of Sidebarred even more, and I thought that
it was even cuter. It was a lot of fun to see what all of the characters were
like seventeen years later, especially when it comes to all of the kids. I
really enjoyed getting a glimpse of what the kids were like as adults and
seeing what Jake and Chelsea’s relationship was like after being married for about
twenty years at that point.
All
things considered, while I’m definitely sad to see the Legal Briefs series end, I think that Sidebarred is an even better ending to the series than I thought Appealed was. Sidebarred definitely maintained my belief that the Legal Briefs series is even better than
the Tangled series. Personally, I
think that Sidebarred worked
perfectly as a novella since none of the conflict that Jake and Chelsea had to
deal with throughout the book was all that high stakes. It was really
refreshing to read a romance novel that didn’t involve the characters having
affairs and wasn’t overflowing with angst and drama. It was really great to
read a romance novel about a couple that was very happy together and supported
each other as they dealt with problems that I think a lot of couples out there
can relate to.
A
part of me wishes that Stanton and Sofia had had just a little bit more of a
presence in Sidebarred, because if
I’m being honest, they were somewhat forgettable in this book. The parts
featuring Brent and Kennedy were a lot of fun and very memorable by comparison,
though. To be fair, that could be because they were the focus of Appealed, and it wasn’t all that long
ago that I read that book compared to how long it’s been since I read and
reviewed Overruled.
In
case anybody who reads this review hasn’t already heard the news, Emma Chase has
recently announced that her next book series will be called Royally. The title of the first book in
the series will be Royally Screwed,
and it’s scheduled to be released in September of this year. If you’d like to
know more about the Royally series,
you can read about it here. Honestly, I’m even more excited about the Royally series than I was when I first
discovered the Tangled series, or
when Emma Chase announced the Legal
Briefs series. The premise of the series sounds like it’s going to be a lot
of fun, and I’ll definitely be reading and reviewing the Royally series as each book is released.
That
being said, my final score for Sidebarred
is 10 out of 10.
