The Ever After of Ella and Micha - Review

The Ever After of Ella and Micha (The Secret, # 3.5)

By: Jessica Sorsensen

Published: December 3rd 2013 by Forever

272 pages

Genre: New Adult, Contemporary

Source: Borrowed from my Holly @ Words Fueled by Love

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Goodreads description--From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Temptation of Lila and Ethan comes a story of change, hope, and unbreakable vows.

The day Ella has waited for is just around the corner. It's the day she'll marry Micha, the love of her life, the light that guided her out of the darkness. It looks like it will be the perfect Christmas-until an unexpected package arrives with a harsh reminder of Ella's past. Suddenly Ella doesn't feel as confident about her future. Can she really have a "happily-ever-after" if she's never even seen one?

Micha will stand by Ella no matter what she's going through-though he worries that she might leave him standing at the altar again. When he's offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance to tour with his favorite bands for three months, Micha knows he can't leave Ella behind. But can he ask her to uproot her life to join him on the road?

Now Ella and Micha must find a way to balance their fears, their dreams, and their love . . . if they ever want to hear wedding bells.

I’m starting to kind of feel like too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing. Thankfully I believe Jessica Sorensen is done with this series, but I was beginning to feel like it was being drawn out for no real reason. It really caught me off guard when reading The Temptation of Lila and Ethan that Ella pulls a no-show for the wedding. Obviously that was really just set up for this book, but it felt completely out of the blue to me.

Truthfully, Ella has been an increasing struggle for me with each book that I've read in this series. I totally enjoyed reading about her in The Secret of Ella and Micha, but since then she’s slowly been building up to annoying. I get that her past experience has always been to run, but I just felt more and more like she was overreacting. Micha in contrast has become more and more stable. In his own way, he’s pretty much always been the rock in their relationship. He’s had his own demons to conquer, sure, but mostly, he’s just there for Ella. Always. He’s careful not to spook her into running for the hills, especially since standing him up at the alter.

It almost felt like there was no real conflict to this book. Even though Ella constantly battles her fears, her desire to run isn’t away from Micha for the most part. She’s confident in her feelings for him and her desire to marry him. But other things are always in her periphery that spook her. I guess the true battle for Ella, and this book, still involves dealing with her mother’s life and death. Sure that’s kind of a real life thing. Unlike books, resolution doesn’t always come swiftly and finally. Real life bangs us over the head time and time again, and our pasts continually haunt us. However, it felt to me that this should have mostly been resolved in The Forever of Ella and Micha.

In some ways, I feel like my review is coming off more negative than I intend. I did enjoy The Ever After of Ella and Micha, and I’m thankful that they have their happy ending once and for all. But at the same time, I had minor frustrations with this one. Ultimately, it was a good ending to the series, and I’m thankful that I can put it to rest as resolved and be satisfied with the ending. The Ever After of Ella and Micha gets 3.5 Stars from me. Have you read The Ever After of Ella and Micha? What did you think? Let me know!