2.5 starsOh wow this hits all of my previously identified New Adult/Young Adult checklist:
1. Written in the first person POV –
check, although not done badly
2. Obsession with describing clothes, hair and make-up of all protagonists –
check, although not annoyingly so
3. Angst - parental abuse, ex-boyfriend abuse, mad stalker, rape victims, death of first boyfriend, substance abuse, death of mother from cancer, in the witness protection programme (I made that one up but I bet there's one out there) –
check4. Arts - one of them is a dancer or a musician or a singer and/or a tattoo artist -
check5. Tattoos and/or piercings generally – don't think so
6. Both protagonists being, quite frankly, as thick as pig shit. These books take mutual misunderstandings to a whole new level of "he said, she said" when in most instances by page 50 anyone with half a brain would have said "hey, what are you talking about, I didn't stand you up/leave you/sleep with your best friend" and that would be that! - there's a bit of this but not much
7. Usually explicit sex scenes and/or obsession with the heroine's so-called V-Card -
check8. Having stupid names – no one in these books has a name like John Brown –
checkRainy Dey ! Rainy Dey FFS
9. The guy giving the girl a stupid nickname -
check Sunshine (get that, she's called Rainy Dey and he calls her Sunshine?)
10. Someone has oodles of money – enough for a teenager to buy a house/car/engagement ring –
check11. Some sort of stupid bet –
checkSo, I hated Rainy Dey, all she ever seemed to do was watch Aaron do nothing, then she would run away crying, over and over again. Aaron needed to grow a pair – he started the book as the boy who had everything and ended it as a weak, needy, cry-baby, slightly creepy, obsessive who got pushed around by everyone.
And really, in this day and age would a group of wealthy privileged boys have a stupid competition to see how many girls they could sleep with? And would they be able to keep it quiet?
Evan was a complete tool in the book until the very last minute when I could almost hear the cogs turning in the author's mind, "Hey, I could do a sequel, and I could make it about Evan" (I don't know if she has, but I suspect it).
The book ended so abruptly I was actually expecting it to end on a cliff-hanger but no, all was forgiven in the space of what felt like two pages.
Going back to special forces romances – formulaic in a different way!