Sitting on the edge with my Kindle

Oh 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) – check

4. Arts - one of them is a dancer or a musician or a singer and/or a tattoo artist - check

5. Tattoos and/or piercings generally - check

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 - check

I also thought of a few more to add to the list based on this book and the one I read afterwards

8. Having stupid names – no one in these books has a name like John Brown – checkTaylor Caldwell and Hunter Zaccadelli

9. The guy giving the girl a stupid nickname - check Missy

10. Someone has oodles of money – enough for a teenager to buy a house/car/engagement ring – check

11. Some sort of stupid bet – check

So, the actual writing was good and the story was so-so – a question for you Americans out there, I get co-ed housing but would a college really expect a boy and a girl to share a bedroom? Or, as I suspect, is it merely a plot device to get a girl and a boy to share a bedroom? I can't imagine many parents being happy to find out that their precious daughter is dressing and sleeping in the same room as a strange boy. Also, why wouldn't the housing office be more supportive if a girl said she felt uncomfortable having a strange boy in her bedroom?

This one really cranks ups the angst to new levels: murder suicide witnessed by a child, attempted rape, attempted child molestation, cousin in a wheelchair, giving evidence in a parole hearing, estranged parent …

The best I can say about this is that it was better than the one I read after it. Maybe I'll give these New Adult/Young Adult books a miss for a while they are way too formulaic