e-ARC, 320 pages
Release Date: December 3, 2013Published by: Entangled TeenStand-alone
Source: NetGalley (A huge thank you to Entangled Teen and NetGalley for the chance to read and review this galley! I was given nothing in exchange for a just and honest review!)For fans of: Chick-lit, Contemporary Romance, Sparkly Covers, Realistic Fiction, YA
For Kellie Brooks, family has always been a tough word to define. Combine her hippie mom and tattooist stepdad, her adopted overachieving sister, her younger half brother, and her tough-love dad, and average Kellie’s the one stuck in the middle, overlooked and impermanent. When Kellie’s sister finally meets her birth mother and her best friend starts hanging with a cooler crowd, the feeling only grows stronger.
But then she reconnects with Oliver, the sweet and sensitive college guy she had a near hookup with last year. Oliver is intense and attractive, and she’s sure he’s totally out of her league. But as she discovers that maybe intensity isn’t always a good thing, it’s yet another relationship she feels is spiraling out of her control.
It’ll take a new role on the school newspaper and a new job at her mom’s tattoo shop for Kellie to realize that defining herself both outside and within her family is what can finally allow her to feel permanent, just like a tattoo.
*MY THOUGHTS*
Originally when I saw this, I wasn’t really enticed to read it. But then when I started seeing reviews for it pop up, and I decided I wanted to read it. But unfortunately, it just didn’t work for me. I could only get through the beginning before I couldn’t continue.
One problem I had with this was the writing style. For it to be a YA book, it seemed as if it were like a middle grade. Yeah some of the content was YA, but the writing style just seemed so young. Also, I thought her thinking was a little young minded as well. For example, not wanting people to know you’re friends with someone because you don’t want to be seen as a geek? Omg that’s petty. Even when I was in school people thought being smart or in a “dorky after school club” was something cool that could keep you out of trouble.
Another thing I didn’t like was the book itself. Disclaimer, I get it, its an e-ARC, but the “fl” and “fi” were missing out of it and sometimes I had to stop my reading flow and figure out what the word was because it wasn’t one that I could automatically guess. With me having to keep stopping I wasn’t exactly a fan of the way the story flowed. And for this reason, I just couldn’t connect to it.
In the end I DNF’ed this around 20%. After seeing the god reviews for it I wanted to see it get better, but it just didn’t. I couldn’t finish it.
Overall, I give this
