***3 Stars***
This is a new to me author and after reading the blurb I was super excited to get my hands on this one. This book was hard to read for me. The beginning was slow for me and the characters weren't all that likable or developed in my opinion. This was an opposite attracts contemporary YA novel and I was just not feeling it.
Mandy has been in love with her best friend Gus for forever and when he asks her to go to a party with him she jumps at the chance. Little does she know that he is only going there to hook up with her archenemy, Kay. She devises a plan to get to him once and for all which is where Caleb comes in. He is the ultimate bad boy who just so happens to need help getting his stalker ex girlfriend Elle off his back. So they come up with the ridiculous plan of having a pretend relationship to make Gus jealous and make Elle back off. But like most pretend relationships in books nowadays, feelings come into play and they soon have to decide whether or not they want to make this relationship real.
I seriously disliked Gus from the beginning! Mandy claims he is her best friend but he all but ditches her when school starts to hang out with the lacrosse team and Kay. He also completely forgot that it was Mandy's birthday when he took her to that party and he ditched her. I felt like his character was nothing but drama after drama and I was not feeling anything but disdain and anger towards his character. I felt indifference toward Elle. I felt like her character was just there for unnecessary drama.
I thought Mandy and Caleb were fine but the situations they were in became monotonous after awhile. Mandy has both ADHD and dysgraphia which are both learning difficulties and as a result, I felt like her character was all over the place. I got used to it after awhile but I found it kind of annoying and hard to read at times. She had an interesting fascination with everything disco which I found interesting at times but I think the author took it a little too far sometimes. I thought it was weird that she had a hard time trusting her best friends over the whole Gus situation. I thought she was an okay character, albeit annoying, but just not some I could ultimately relate to. I liked Caleb and his bad boy vibe but I think he was more of a loner who was afraid to get too close to people because of things that happened in his past. I couldn't really see a connection between him and Mandy till probably the last little bit of the book.
I found this book to be very monotonous and predictable. I like how the author created tension between Mandy and Caleb and that was probably what kept me reading the book but that didn't really make the plot any more interesting. I would have liked if the author combined the tension with more character development and a deeper plot.
Overall the book was an okay read for me. The storyline wasn't that compelling and the characters weren't all that strong. While this didn't turn out to be the book for me, I wish the author much success in her future books.
Reviewed by Ashley Ziegler
Disclaimer: This book contains a villain pretending to be a hero, a hero pretending to be a villain, a disco-dancing heroine, two overprotective sidekicks, a little bit of bad language, and a whole lot of swoony kissing.
Spirit committee leader Mandy Pennington is secretly in love with her best friend, Gus, but when he hooks up with her archenemy at a party, she decides to win him over once and for all. She just doesn’t know how. But who better to help than hot loner Caleb Torrs?
Caleb’s got his own problems, but when he sees Mandy pining over Gus at a party, he thinks she’s finally smoked the spirit stick and lost her mind. Maybe he has, too, because he just asked Mandy to be his fake girlfriend.She’ll get her loser friend’s attention, and he’ll get his stalker ex off his back.It’s a win-win.
But soon one fake date blends into the next and before he knows it, he actually wants to kiss Mandy. For real. Too bad their plan is working, and Gus is finally noticing the one girl Caleb just might be falling for…
Spirit committee leader Mandy Pennington is secretly in love with her best friend, Gus, but when he hooks up with her archenemy at a party, she decides to win him over once and for all. She just doesn’t know how. But who better to help than hot loner Caleb Torrs?
Caleb’s got his own problems, but when he sees Mandy pining over Gus at a party, he thinks she’s finally smoked the spirit stick and lost her mind. Maybe he has, too, because he just asked Mandy to be his fake girlfriend.She’ll get her loser friend’s attention, and he’ll get his stalker ex off his back.It’s a win-win.
But soon one fake date blends into the next and before he knows it, he actually wants to kiss Mandy. For real. Too bad their plan is working, and Gus is finally noticing the one girl Caleb just might be falling for…
Amazon UK - http://amzn.to/2aECcw8
Amazon USA - http://amzn.to/2avyB4j
No comments:
Post a Comment