As a fan of J. Bengtsson’s Cake series, I was intrigued by her news that she was writing a prequel about the couple that created all of our favorite characters…Michelle and Scott McCallister, the parents. After six books about the McCallister siblings, you’d think the reader would know everything about Michelle and Scott, but I learned that my knowledge only brushed the surface. What Lasts takes us back to the 80’s and the beginning of it all.

Michelle has grown up in privilege and when she meets Scott, someone who is not among the privileged (at all), she embarass’s herself in front of him, and yet Scott is intrigued. Not thinking she’ll ever show up, he invites her to his gig that night and surprisingly she shows up. This is just the beginning of Michelle showing up for Scott. As we learn from the other novels, Michelle wants more from her future than to marry whomever her parents deem appropriate, so she gives it all up for a single dad who works three jobs in order to be there for his boy, Mitchell. What follows are a couple of decades of having and raising kids, living in poverty, and Scott trying to live up to what he thinks Michelle needs.Then comes the backbone of all of Cake’s novels. Jake’s kidnapping, return, and skyrocketing career to rockstardom. How do Michelle and Scott handle all of the above? The details are in the novel so I’ll let you see if you like how their story is told. I’ll admit, I found it kind of lackluster.

I love these books, but what I really like about them are the relationships between all of the siblings. Was I curious about Michelle and Scott? A little bit? Scott was obviously a character so it was kind of cool to see where all of his unusualness came from. Michelle always came off as a bit of a cool customer. I knew she came from a wealthy background but even after learning about their struggles, and how as a mother she felt during all of the kidnapping trauma, I just never really warmed up to her. So, for me, I didn’t find their story that riveting. What it did do though, is make me want to read all of the sibling novels again, so really it did it’s job! I’ve read them all at least twice as well as listened to the audiobooks. I have my favorites, but I think this time I’m going to read them in order.

Thank you so much for allowing me to read an early copy! I’m a SoCal girl who grew up in Ventura County, so I always love to read stories that take place in that area. I’m looking forward to going back and taking a visit to SoCal with some of my favorite characters.

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