Sometimes life is quiet for a while and then a lot happens in one day. Like that day when Cash’s supposedly dead mother shows up at her door and Laurel reappears, all bruised and battered, after seven months who knows where. Cash doesn’t exactly have time to be really mad at her since her former business partner is the one responsible for Laurel’s injuries, and is planning to kill them both.
I have mad respect for people who know when to stop. You create terrific characters and don’t want to let them go, and it’s perfectly understandable. But there comes a time when they’ve done everything they could do and more would be too much. Take Cash Braddock, for example. She is growing (a little) and her snarkiness is getting a bit old, which makes it perfect for the final book in the series. I’ll be sad to see her go but the time is right.
As I wrote in my review for one of the previous books in this series, I never thought I’d love a drug dealer so much. Cash Braddock is one of my favourite characters ever: she’s smart, funny, relatably flawed. She’s a survivor and an emotional coward (her words, not mine) but also unconsciously ready to grow, despite what she wants others to think. She’s more than willing to break rules and laws she believes are absurd or unfair but she has more morals than many people I know.
Journey to Cash is fun and exhilarating and fast-paced, surprisingly so since the characters spend a lot of time waiting, but Bartlett keeps the rhythm up with banter and delightfully funny dialogues. And Cash isn’t the only fantastic character, they all are. They tend not to have very distinctive voices but it doesn’t really matter, I enjoy the dialogues too much to care. Do not read this book as a standalone, though. Many of those great characters from previous episodes make an appearance, and I had to go back to book 3, Cash and the Sorority Girl, to remind myself of who was who.
Journey to Cash is a very enjoyable and fitting end to an excellent series. I’ll miss Cash and everyone, but I have faith in Bartlett to come up with more morally grey yet totally lovable characters.
Jude in the Stars 