Stacia in Progress

3.5 stars. My review is going to be quite half-assed this time. Either you love these books or you don't. I have to fall on the love side because so many experiences in these books are ones that I have witnessed first hand. Sure, there are people who feel it a bit fake, but not everything can be 100% accurate. I feel like the author did her research and came close enough for me to relate, being someone who has been there, lived that.Good lord, it's as if these books are half documenting my teen years. It's crazy how much of this stuff actually happened to me and exes of mine. It's nice to read something that isn't so far off from my life, me being the girl who dropped out of high school and had a baby as a teen and still managed to overcome and make something decent out of my life. This is one of the only book series that at least sort of gets what the rest of us "bad kids" went through.Were the love stories a bit sappy and overdone? Perhaps? But maybe not as much as some people complain about. Even my hard-assed gang-living high school boyfriend had a sappy side. He used to write me poetry. He used to whisper words of love and affection in my ear that used to make me melt. He probably reigned it in a little when around his friends because of the whole image thing, but that side of him was still there under the surface. I swear, there was so much of Alex (from book 1) in my first love, but I can pull out qualities of both Carlos and Luis that would match up with other boyfriends of mine.Call me blasphemous (Alex I still got your back!) but dare I say I liked this one just a little bit better than even book 1? I thought it was great how the author managed to bring all three brothers together to tell the continuing story of the family as a whole. I still got to have my Alex fix, but also got to see where Carlos and Kiara's relationship was headed. And then...then there was Luis. He was all of the good qualities of Alex, while managing to be even more in spirit. He was so much fun. The cockiness was playful, not serious, which added an adorable appeal to the youngest Fuentes brother.Nikki, the girl in this book, was hands down my favorite girl in the series. I never really attached to either Brittany or Kiara. I'm not sure why all three girls had to be rich girls, but whatever. Small complaint. If you were a fan of the first book, but not so much of the second, I'm here to tell you that you'll be getting some of the original magic back with this book. Partway into the book, the whole family moves back to Chicago, so we get away from the small-town mountain setting of Boulder (awesome town, but yeah...not so much for these books). This story needed to be told in Chicago. Book 2 lost something for me when the setting changed, so I was happy to see that a relocation was in order.