You guys, this book. I understand that smutty love novels are a thing right now, what with Twilight and Fifty Shades of whatever being super hits. And I guess that’s the reason why this book is a thing. But it’s just so bad!
I already tortured myself by reading the first three Twilight books (I couldn’t get myself to pick up the fourth) and I wasn’t about to pick up the Fifty Shades trilogy because I have some self-respect. So I thought, hey, why not at least try the book that people are using for their Twilight/Fifty Shades hangover.
I would have been better off eating a shoe.
So, Abby Abernathy (yes, this is the protaganist’s actual name) has a past that she wants to distance herself from. So she attends college, dresses preppy, and pretty much behaves herself. And then she meets Travis Maddox. He is lean, muscled, fights for money, and has tattoos, as bad boys (in bad novels that use cliched tropes) are wont to do. Maddox is also kind of a womanizer in that he’ll jump anything that half notices him. And Abernathy finds this incredibly appealing but dannnnggeerrous to her plan of re-inventing herself. So she steels herself from Maddox’s douchery charm. But she doesn’t do a good job. Somehow she ends up agreeing to a bet with Maddox where, if he loses he must stop his wanton ways for a month but if he wins Abby has to stay with him for a month. Stay with him. In his room. In his bed. So, to move the plot to it’s eventual and pitiful conclusion, McGuire has Abby lose and move into Maddox’s house.
And this is when the cray comes out. Maddox is hella jealous! Like, if he sees Abby talking to another guy, he starts shaking with anger. Meanwhile, he continues to sleep with women (sometimes two at a time) with Abby sleeping in a nearby room. But see, this is all okay because they are meant 4 each other!!!11!
Look, I get it. Love (or infatuation or obsession…whatever this is) makes you do weird things, make poor choices, and not see things clearly. But if it looks, smells, and sounds like an abusive relationship, that’s what it is. I swear, this book makes me want to revoke Jamie McGuire’s right to vote. She single-handedly pushed women back a generation with this junk. Like Stephanie Meyers with Twilight.
Don’t read this. Read The Hunger Games or Female Chauvanist Pigs or, I don’t know, the back of a box of cereal. Anything but this.
One coffee out of five. Raspberry!
p.s. Apparently this is book one of a trilogy. Because, of course.
I know what you’re thinking: What are you reading ipsedixit? And to that I reply, I know. I KNOW. But I’ve been dealing with some heavy stuff of late and I needed some light reading. And I might have gone a little too light. And by too light I mean just shy of Twilight.
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I beg to differ. See that cover over there on the left? Kind of amazing, right? And the hand drawn goodness wraps around to the back as well. In all honesty, it almost didn’t matter what this book was about. I fell in love with the cover art and had to bring it home.
In high school, I wasn’t awkward at all. I had all the right clothes, hung out with all the right people, and got invited to the best parties. Plus I dated the hottest guy at school.
Premise: cousins share a “kid table” at every family occasion (Fourth of July, New Year’s, an adult relative’s bar mitzvah). They enjoy each other’s company – for the most part – but resent the table, scheming of ways to join the adults. This is where we meet our narrator, Ingrid, as she shares the indignity of sitting at the kid table while also resenting the fact that her slightly older cousin – Brianne – somehow managed to make it out.
I read this book in one night instead of sleeping.
A monster calls on Conor just after midnight in the shape of a yew tree looming over his bedroom window. But Conor is not afraid. “I’ve seen worse,” he says. And he has – his waking life is filled with helping care for his mother during another round of cancer treatments, a father who has largely disappeared to be with his new family in America, a gang of bullies at school, and losing faith in his one true friend. Amid all this turmoil, it is almost a relief to be visited by the yew tree at night. Or at least it’s a nice change of pace from the monster in his other nightmare – the one that truly frightens him.
Have you ever felt haunted by a book that wanted you to read it, no matter what? The wonderfully-titled Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children followed me around for a couple of weeks, then appeared in my house under suspicious circumstances. Which is to say, it was recommended to me on various websites, by word of mouth, and I saw it reviewed all over the place. But I resisted, and wasn’t sure that I really wanted or needed to read it. I wish I could remember what finally convinced me to pick it up, or where or when I finally bought it. All I can say for sure, however, is that it made its way into my home, at the very top of my TBR, and I’m grateful that it did.
Booksellers Without Borders
bookiegalore
Recidivist Reader
hardboundandgagged
ipsedixit
turpentinestevens
überliterate
Booksellers Without Borders 