The Boy I Grew Up With

By: Tijan

Narrated by: Blake Richard, Summer Morton

Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's Summary

I have loved Channing Monroe all my life.  

In first grade, he asked for my Trapper Keeper. 

I hit him in the head with it. 

Third grade, we were best friends. We kissed in seventh grade. 

In eighth grade, he turned into a bad boy and the rest was a tumultuous storm.  

Growing up, the problem was never love for us. Bad times. Good times. There were times when I felt our love in every inch of my body, vibrating, making me feel like it could bring me back to life.  

The problem was us.  

The problem is that we're living in two different worlds now. Fallen Crest and its millionaires for me. Roussou and their criminals for him. I was thriving in mine and he was running his.  

But... But there were nights I felt we couldn't be further apart than we were, and there were nights I felt we shared the same heartbeat.  

When was it time? 

When was it time to either sacrifice, make a change, or walk away from the boy I grew up with?

©2018 Tijan (P)2019 Audible, Inc.

Lame Gang

The description and reviews are amazing so how could I not purchase!?

Struggled to make it a quarter of the way thru - Channing (while a great performance and beautiful voice) was way too old of a voice for this.

While I could get past that, the lame attempt to talk about "gangs/crews" was laughable. The Jets and the Sharks breaking in to dance had more street believability.

Hard pass for me.

11 people found this helpful

What Only Love Can Do

Damaged girl grows up in crummy household environment, not feelin' the love. Damaged boy has crummy household, too. No love there. But he finds damaged girl in first grade and latches onto her like his life depends on it. In truth, it probably did. These two, Heather and Channing, sure didn't have much going for them in their early years. They had to claw their way up on their own, and figure out what life and love was all about without any good role models.

But somehow they clung to each other like driftwood from the Titanic and managed to make their own way. It was at times turbulent, messy, insane, beautiful, maddening, and steamy. They must find within themselves and each other the strength and courage they need to grow well beyond their history and become beautiful people capable of loving and caring for others. Fabulous story of an incredible journey and an amazing love.

2 people found this helpful

Incredible

This book was truly amazing. I couldn’t stop listening. It had me on the edge of my seat most of the time. It had me feeling all of the emotions. It was wonderful. I didn’t want it to end.

3 people found this helpful

Bad book

I am 4 hours in and I can't do it anymore it's a bad story line and the male narrator was to old to be a 23 yr old man. I couldn't do it anymore so I am thankful I am part of a book club so I didnt have to pay for it .

Don't shoot snakes

Love the Fallen Crest series and this story but ...
There was a part of the story where the hero (who is reputedly smart) shoots a rattlesnake who is supposedly going after him and some other people in a cave.
Rattlesnakes don't do this and don't need anyone encouraging people to shoot them.
The comic relief crazy girl even defended the snake.
Please.

so slow

really confusing, slow moving, almost dnf but pushed through. I was a little mad about pushing through at the end. the end leaves a lot to be desired.

Channing and Heather

It's so nice to finally get some personal insight to Channing and Heather's story! I absolutely loved the Fallen Crest series, I would recommend this book after the final book in that series. The narrative is excellent!

VERY Sons of Anarchy

If Sons of Anarchy had been written from Tara's perspective, it might have been very similar to this book.

When I added this book to my Escapes titles, I was looking for something light and silly as I just finished a book that gave me a mild existential crisis. This book was not light. It certainly wasn't silly. It is dark and brooding and intense. It is a gritty, extreme story about two people from the same but different worlds who have battled a tempestuous relationship since they were 8. It is about their lives - Heather as a restaurant owner/manager, sister, girlfriend, and badass woman who is continually pulled into explosive situations (much like Sons' Tara). Channing is a brother, boyfriend, bar owner, and the reluctant head of a "crew" trying to keep rival gangs off his turf (just like Jax). This is a book about every piece of their lives and their relationship just happens to be a piece of that.

IT IS NOT A ROMANCE NOVEL!!! However, I thought it was fantastic. I'm not going to lie, there were a few moments where I seriously considered stopping to find another book - mostly in the first 5 or so chapters - but so glad I continued.

I felt that the narrators did an outstanding job, though I think that the male narrator's voice sounded just a bit too old for the character. It didn't throw me off, but he just seemed more mature than what I was picturing Channing.

On a side note, I found the shoutouts to some of the people/artists that the author seems to be a fan of to be very amusing. For example, Heather's closest friends in childhood were Channing and Tate (usually short for Tatum). And since I believe the author took inspiration from SOA, Healther's last name is Jacks, much like Jax Teller. There are a couple of others thrown in. Watch for them.


Another author you might enjoy, though not as dark:
LJ Shen

A beautiful story packed with everything

What a rollercoaster of a book! It follows the ups and downs of Heather and Channing, who’ve known each other since first grade, and been a couple almost since. Now they’re in their twenties, and life hasn’t been nice with them. Sometimes they stick together, sometimes they tear each other apart. And you have all of that in the book--including flashbacks of their early years.

I enjoyed it a lot because, instead of witnessing the umpteenth seducing process, I could read--or listen to--about how a couple deals with their problems. Not always in the most mature way--because they’re still young--but I liked the novelty.

It was emotional, to say the least. Heather is a strong independant woman, who takes care of everything and everyone--a crew mindset, Channing would say--but can only lean on her lover. And Channing is a reliable and adoring man when he’s with her. She’s the princess in his life, he loves her that much. A beautiful couple.

I also liked the supporting characters, they’re pretty colorful. Between the snobish stalker, the psycho manager and the powerless playboy, they made for a fun read. A good way to release the tension between the intense scenes with Heather and Jax.

But I think the audiobook wasn’t the best way to discover this beautiful piece. Although the female voice was really good, I couldn’t care less for the male voice. He almost put me to sleep, barely whispering his lines... Thankfully, Heather/her voice have the most lines.

If you want to read a beautiful story packed with everything--violence and romance and drama--this is the one you should read.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wow, this was hella boring. I'm up to chap 8 and there's like no story surrounding this romance in between all the unnecessary filler flashbacks. I got fooled by the hot guy cover. The narrators are great though..

A full five stars - Perfect

You know the feeling. You start a book, and from that very first page you know. You just know that you’re gonna love it. Well that was me with ‘The Boy I Grew Up With’. I’ve not had that feeling for a while, but thank you Tijan. It’s back! I fecking loved Channing and Heather. I was expecting good, great even, what I got was even better, it blew all my preconceived notions out of the window. It literally blew me away! We got a glimpse of Heather and Channing in Fallen Crest, and then again in Crew, but nothing prepared me for all the feels, the emotions, the never wanting a book to finish feeling I haven’t had in what feels like forever. The book starts in the middle of their, oh so complicated relationship, whilst they are currently ‘not together’. The story takes us through their very tumultuous, yet emotional relationship from when they met in fifth grade to the present day. The synopsis says it all, so I won’t duplicate it in my review. I will tell you that this is one of my top reads this year, that the writing was perfect, and the story was full of passion, action, lots of drama, sexy times, and yes again, that word, emotion. I loved it. Perfection. I couldn’t have asked for more in a romance novel, and I couldn’t have asked for better narrators. Blake Richard and Summer Morton are new narrators to me. Gotta say, they nailed it.

2 people found this helpful