A review by brandys_reading_count
Through the Ashes by Julia Wolf

3.0

Characters: Asher Beck and Rebecca Lim (Bex) 

(Content Warning: virgin heroine, hero without consent takes nude photos of heroine after sexual encounter, talk of drug addiction, characters smoking marijuana, sort of cheating, sadomasochism, attempted sexual assault, murder and non acceptance of homosexual child)

Bex Lim is a shy nerdy girl with glasses, and one night she decides to go to a party she was invited to from her friend Cassie. There she meets Asher Beck, she has seen him around but she never paid much thought to him because he’s a popular jock and the popular guys don’t go for the nerdy girls. Bex is trying to enjoy herself and Asher starts up a conversation, which leads to her up in his room and her losing her virginity. 

Bex is kind of seeing a guy named Elijah, but things are going great. They are hanging out at a party when Bex sees Asher again, and Asher is pissed because he had no idea that she had a boyfriend. He decides to get back at her by showing Elijah naked photos of Bex, that Asher took without consent when Bex was sleeping in Asher’s bed. Elijah gets mad and calls Bex a lot of derogatory names. 

The next day Asher apologizes by sending her another pic with him and her in his bed, Bex is of course even angrier, and the flirting begins from there.

Most of this story was sad to me, because you see two characters dealing with losses, but finding each other through the pain. 

I also wasn’t a huge fan of how Asher treated Bex at the beginning, especially because he was blaming her for something that wasn’t her fault at all and he made her feel guilty about it for way too long, then expecting her to make all of these sacrifices for him.