Name: Releasing 10
Series: Boys of Tommen #6
Author: Chloe Walsh
Publisher: Bloom
Format: US Paperback
Genres: Upper YA, Contemporary, Sports Romance
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️ (Warning: a lot of the bad kind)
😭? – Oh yep, tears were shed
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
A love that couldn’t be broken, except by the truth.
Lizzie Young has always felt she was too much everything. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder at a young age, she’s never fit in with her family, her friends, her community. Lizzie wants to be accepted and understood, but with few family or friends in her corner, she’s carries her burdens and her trauma on her own.
But when she meets a kind boy on the school bus, things start to look bright for the first time in her life…
Hugh Biggs has an old soul and the wisdom of someone far beyond his years. A young man with a sharp mind and a firm code of ethics, he sees something in Lizzie Young that he can’t resist. He wants to be her everything and shoulder her burden. And Lizzie wants that too.
Lizzie and Hugh’s bond seems unbreakable — their chemistry is electric, their love is potent, and their connection is soul deep – but even the truest love can be shaken by forces beyond control.
Review:
Releasing 10 is the sixth book in Chloe Walsh’ Boys of Tommen Series. There are a lot of rough topics discussed and suggested meaning the author recommends this for an audience of 18+ despite it being marketed as YA in the UK. I have put Upper YA for that reason. Please read the authors warnings before going into this book / series. And as always, spoilers for Releasing 10 would be hidden, but there may be spoilers for the previous books in the series.
I did take a little break before working up the courage to pick up Releasing 10… Honestly I wasn’t crazy excited for Lizzie’s story (initially) as I saw her as a bit of a bully in the other books to people that really didn’t deserve her ire (Gibsie…). But when she talked Joey down in Redeeming 6 I knew I had to give her a chance because that scene was so emotional and is one of the scenes that hit me the hardest due to things I have gone through in my life. I was prepared to give Lizzie a second chance. I can’t relate to most of what she’s been through, some of it however I can and oh boy does that make it even harder to read… I realised pretty early on in Releasing 10, Lizzie deserved my attention.
Up until this book, I didn’t have any crazy opinions of Hughie except his constant comments on Gibsie and Claire’s ‘relationship’ that only a big brother would get away with made him protective and pretty funny. Taming 7 started to show us more on Hughie but in a way that only really hinted that he’d been through something with Lizzie, and that they’d been an item before… We’re kind of mostly left guessing though.
Well, Releasing 10 made it all make sense. We finally understand what has been going on with Lizzie and why she and Gibsie are the way they are… which was already hard enough to read because you’re told they were friends prior to her sister’s death, but Releasing 10 really shows you their friendship and downfall. Hughie is shown to be so much more than just a protective older brother and funny friend, he (next to Johnny, I’d argue) is the most mature of their group but he has buckets of love to give. Or at least he did have. And whilst I still don’t forgive Lizzie for some of the things she has said, I can say that I want to forgive her… because she’s really been through it and arguably she’s not at fault for the things she’s doing.
Releasing 10 was a really difficult read. It tackles some awful god damn topics like truly awful. It is so so important that you read the warnings on offer for this book before you go into it. The things we’ve experieneced up until now were terrible and really hard to read, but Chloe poured a lot more pain into Releasing 10. I had to take multiple breaks while reading this just to kind of remind myself that these characters are fictional and they are not actually experiencing these things. If I had tried to read this all the way through I would have been ugly sobbing the whole time. I think I did more crying when I wasn’t reading the book, during those breaks and once I had finished it. I just need you to understand that before you go into it.
I’ve heard a rumour that Taming 7 will no longer be a stand alone story for Claire and Gibsie, and instead we will be receiving a book 2 for them (tentatively named Healing 7 I believe), and then Lizzie and Hughie’s continuation I believe is to be called Claiming 10? I’m not 100% sure on these names, but I can tell you I am beyond excited for them. I need these stories to continue because Claire and Gibsie deserve more time and Lizzie and Hughie… well, their story is only just beginning. We haven’t even caught up to the timeline of Binding 13 at this point. So, I’m desperate for more, I will be waiting with bated breath for Chloe to release those books…
It feels odd to be caught up with this series now, but I am so glad that I am. These characters are going to, undoubtedly, live in my head rent free. My brain chemistry has been altered now that I have met them. And I am okay with that.
“I’ll always love you, Hugh Biggs, […] No matter what.”
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