The Secret of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen

The Secret of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen

First in The Secret series

2 stars

Ella has run away from her home town without a trace. Ella leaves behind the one person that cared about her to get away from her past; she transforms herself into somebody completely different. She follows rules, does her school work, and is no longer an open book. Summer has come and Ella has nowhere else to go, but home. She has to face the demons that she tried so hard to get away from and face the one person that lives next door that she left behind. Micha is torn up over Ella leaving without a trace. He gave up the one thing he loved to just search for her. He can’t believe she’s come back, but Ella isn’t who she once was, but he’ll do anything to get her back.
If you loved Beautiful Disaster then you're ready to discover . . .
This tagline probably will make anyone that’s read Beautiful Disaster or even reviews steer clear of it. While I know that Beautiful Disaster has a fan base it also has a hate base and it’s probably not best to compare it to a book that idealizes an abusive relationship as romantic. As someone that hasn’t yet read Beautiful Disaster (but plenty of reviews), I can say that this book doesn’t idealize an abusive relationship at all. In fact, Micha would probably beat himself up if he so much as told Ella something cruel. So why it is uses that tagline, is beyond me. Anyway I can pretty much say that The Secret of Ella and Micha is probably a book that you should just skip. I hate saying this because it makes me sound cruel, but it’s so true. I was excited to read the Secret of Ella and Micha because I really enjoyed The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden, but this book is dull. It offers nothing at all. It’s so stereotypical that I just want to scream. How is it stereotypical you ask? Well, Ella is your typical emotional wreck of a heroine who needs
saving, but won’t admit, Micha is your typical bad boy womanizer, they come from broken homes, Ella likes cars ‘cause she’s one of the boys (I’m getting tired of this one), and they were friends for years who never acted on anything until after a tragic accident or whatever. I just described the whole book to you without even giving anything, but everything away.


The main female character is Ella. Ella is a complete and total dunce. I think she’s selfish and she pretty much has no regard for other people. Spoilers may come out threw the review, but I’ll mark them if they are major. She left her mom alone even though she knew that she could kill herself. Her father struggles with alcoholism heavily. I don’t know how he was even able to go to work with how much he drank and if I remember correctly he ended up getting hurt at work at some point in the novel. At one point in the novel, Ella goes to a bar to retrieve her father and has a talk with the bartender.
He shrugs. “Or AA. Something that will help him get his life together.”

I scratch my head, confused. Why hadn’t it occurred to me? Panic starts to claw up my throat and guilty feelings about my mother’s death consume.
Not only are there several grammatical errors in this one paragraph, but you also learned a lot about Ella. She is an idiot who only thinks about herself. Ella never once stopped and thought about what she could do to help her father with his drinking and guess what? She doesn’t even attempt to get him help at all during the whole entire novel. It is all “Woe is me! Life is so unfair! Why did I have to be dealt such a cruel life?” She also turns that talk into something about herself. She starts blaming herself with her mom’s suicide even though it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that she didn’t even think about getting her dad to attend AA or something.


I’m done with her stupid selfishness. She does nothing but make me rage at her blatant stupidity. She does nothing but hurt others and acts like she’s the only one that has to feel hurt in life.


Kick- Butt Heroine Scale: 2

The main male character is Micha. Micha is just boring. He tries to be that perfect bad boy trope and I’m over his lame ass. He sings songs (like that hasn’t been done before *cough cough* The Edge of Never *cough cough*). Not only is he an apparently amazing singer and songwriter, but he stopped doing the one thing he loved when Ella left, which is just stupid.
“Let me wallow in self-pity and search for Ella all day and night. My life has no existence without you. I’m nothing.”-Micha’s train of thought (Not really that’s just how I saw it). Also that he song he sang at the coffeehouse made me gag at the blatant over-the-topness. Sorensen was trying way too hard to make us swoon. All I did was think “blah” and then go listen to Sleeping With Sirens (because that’s good lovey-dovey music). Micha also has this annoying habit of calling Ella Ella, May or baby doll. 


I don’t swoon over Micha. He tries too hard to be that bad boy that sweeps me Ella off her feet. I’m not buying it.


Swoon Worthy Scale: 2

The Villain-

Villain Scale:


The one thing that I did enjoy witnessing was the possible love that could happen between Lila and Ethan. I personally am really curious about where that could go from and I would rather read that book than a continuation of Ella and Micha.


Character Scale: 5

This book is just a boring mess. Sorensen has terrible concept of time. She has us eight months in the past and Ella and Micha are interacting, but eight months ago she was just in Las Vegas. I caught this one thing that really bothered me and I hope that it was just a mistake in my ARC. Alas, this book just seriously lacked in comparison to The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden. If you have to choose between those two books in the future pass this one up and go with that one. It's so much better.


Cover Thoughts: I love the cover, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with the book. That blue and purple looks so good together though.

Thank you, Netgalley and Grand Central Publishing for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.