teen angst – Goodys.Blog

Publish Date: August 21st, 2019

Number of Pages: 360 Pages

Publisher: Self Published

Genre(s): New Adult Romance

Total Star Rating: 3.25 Stars

This title was constantly being tossed around as a popular recent release amongst the growing New Adult Romance genre that I’ve really come to love, so of course it was only a matter of time until I decided to give it a try. The blurb/synopsis has it revealed that it’s another addition to the “enemies-to-lovers” story trope, and after finishing this book, I can say it is a great example of just that.

Throughout reading, I found myself rolling my eyes a couple times at how gritty and overly sexualized the author made her cast of characters: the popular girls who are all frenemies who can’t help but say cutting remarks between pasted on smiles, the boys are all edgy and sexy while doing drugs, bragging about their badassery and sexual appetites while getting into fights while also having some random chick still wrapped around them, even how sophomores are hanging out with seniors and have an air of mystery with how good of a fighter they are… I don’t know, maybe it’s because I grew up in a midwestern suburb and didn’t party at all in high school, but this setting was a bit ridiculous for me to say the least. I will say it got better when the story finally started to narrow in on Daria and Penn, the two main characters, once the sparks began to fly between them. While the setup was over the top, I can say the author excelled at the romance and the rising sexual tension.

While the lust and romance was the major highlight of the book, even that was a bit over-the-top and eroticized–not sure if that’s actually a word, but whatever–with Daria and Penn fighting their animosity for each other with their growing feelings. There were some pretty erotic moments that occurred, and yes… fully aware I was dull in high school, but I’m pretty sure no one who’s 16-18 has done a few things that happens in this book, but I also can’t deny that it’s all still pretty hot book smut to read if you’re into that sort of thing.

I was pretty drawn into the story as the tension rose and the plot thickened, and I’m not even talking about the stupid & petty high school BS. There’s actually quite a lot going on, like domestic abuse, bullying, sexual assault, and just violence in general. There are some major triggers in Pretty Reckless for certain readers that they should be aware of before they decide to read this book. The author does also weave into the storyline of self acceptance and awareness that the two love interests help teach each other… you know, when they’re not getting hot and heavy after seducing each other to the point of eruption. Another issue may be the implied cheating that occurs with multiple characters who may or may not be in relationships already… the line is pretty blurry on that, but I can’t detract that there’s a vast amount of casual sex happening/implied throughout.

One thing that I’m still a little…. meh about is that while this is the start of a series, there are a lot of instances that imply inside reference to previous events with other books. This is the first book I’ve read by L.J. Shen, but this All Saints High series is a continuation/spin off/etc. of her other series, Sinners of Saint. While I do believe you can read and enjoy this book without having read any of her previous work, I did find myself wondering about when a past instance or person was mentioned or referenced. This was especially true with Daria’s parents, Jaime and Mel, and their neighbor, Dean. Actually, it turns out all the kids in this series are the kids of the main characters of the previous books. If I care enough as I keep reading on, maybe I’ll make it a point to go back and see how deep this all really goes.

Despite what can be contrived as mostly negative feedback on the book, I did really become encapsulated by it, and read it deep into the night instead of getting a good night’s sleep because I did feel the need to see what would happen next. Like I said, the romance was scorching even though it was a bit overdone for high school students, I liked the scorching chemistry between Daria and Penn, and the lessons they both taught each other throughout in order to give their relationship really deep meaning and more than just a sexy fling.

What It’s About:

This story stars Daria Followhill and Penn Scully, two teenagers who come from completely opposite backgrounds and live two totally different lives, but both ruin Penn’s twin sister’s life without fully realizing it. Daria and Penn’s sister, Via, don’t get along at Daria’s mother’s ballet studio, and jealousy gets the best of Daria when she finds out that her mother helped Via get accepted into an elite school for dance, so she takes the acceptance letter and runs outside, and that is when her and Penn meet for the first time.

They believed a new friendship was formed with the possibility of more over the torn pages of a letter, but Penn had no idea what he’d done and because of his actions, Via ends up running away and disappearing, to which Penn puts all the blame on Daria. The new friendship quickly descends into pure hatred and they become sworn enemies.

Four years later, life makes another unexpected twist, and Penn ends up living with Daria and her family to make up for how they didn’t help with his sister’s disappearance, and tensions are high with them wanting to make each other’s lives a living hell…

What I liked:

Everyone Is An Asshole! I know, this is a weird one to put under what I liked, but I did think it made the story that much more interesting to have all the characters be so morally grey and not entirely likeable. Some characters did have some more redeemable qualities than others as the story developed.
Daria’s Struggle! Her inner conflict really resonated with me on a personal level, because I’ve definitely been where she’s been. Maybe not fully to the degree of what she faces with her friends and mother, but I do get her feelings of being unwanted, unloved and irrelevant in other people’s lives, therefore making one absolutely unlovable in general, either with family or a romantic relationship. She wants the love and attention that any normal human being wants, but pushes away when it’s shown because of the past hurt and pain she’s felt, and she wants to protect herself from feeling that amount of pain again. Even more so when the person has hurt her so many times throughout, but they don’t see where the issue even stems from, nor do they try to learn in order to understand Daria better. Like I said, I really understood where she was coming from, and hopefully I have someone like Penn to help me move past it like he did for Daria.
The Romance! It was scorching and filled with plenty of juicy angst; I will give the author some major kudos on writing some steamy moments in the story. I still say quite a bit of it was pretty over-the-top for two kids in high school, but it was still enjoyable at least.

What I Didn’t Like:

Too Many Pop Culture References…This was something that was pointed out in my writing too, so now I really take notice to it, but there was a lot of current pop culture references made in this book. While for right now they all work well, the author weaved them into the story with much hilarity, what about in five years from now? Will they still be relevant, or will this just make the story feel very dated as time moves on?
The Extra-ness…The story does have overly sexualized, stereotypical characters as a backdrop which initially made wanting to keep reading something I absolutely didn’t want to do. The exaggerated focus on fighting, violence, sex, and drugs was just a bit overly dramatic and unrealistic, and didn’t convince me as much as the All for the Game books have done, but at least the romance made it all worth it.

Conclusion:

A sexy enemies-to-lovers New Adult Romance that started off with an unrealistic base, but developed into an incredibly binge-worthy read! The romance was absolutely electric: from the initial seductive teasing and arguing, to the love scenes and then to the eventual admissions of their true feelings for each other.

I’d definitely recommend this title for those who are fans of the genre who like the morally grey main characters, or for those that have possibly read books by Penelope Douglas. Pretty Reckless heavily reminded me of Punk 57, which I enjoyed as well!

I think I will read on, as the next book in this series will feature Knight, who was one of my more favorable characters of the bunch, we’ll see what happens next!

Trigger Warnings: assault, sexual assault, cheating on significant other, bullying, violence, domestic abuse

Thanks For Reading!

— Nick Goodsell

YA Contemporary Fiction

My Book Review: Party: by Tom Leveen

May 30, 2019October 15, 2020 nicholasjgoodsell

Publish Date: April 1st 2010
Number of Pages: 240 Pages
Publisher: Random House BFYR
Genre(s): YA Fiction

Total Star Rating: 4 Stars

This title is probably what I consider to be one of the most underrated titles out there, whether within the YA genre or fiction in general.

What It’s About:

It has a simple premise: it revolves around the intertwining lives of high school students as they go to a party on a friday night in Santa Barbara, California. It’s a contemporary novel with an astounding 11 different perspectives of a single night! You don’t see that very often in any fictional story, and as you dives into the book, you get inside the heads of all these different characters and learn what they’re really thinking as the night escalates.

Basically, everyone has a reason to be there, and some are more meaningful than others: to say “screw you” to their parents, to hook up, to forget, to find the girl, to make friends, to support someone in need, or to say goodbye…

Everyone has a reason to be there that night.

What I liked:

The Multiple Perspectives! I have found that I love storylines with multiple narrators and tells what’s happening from their perspectives. Some have their own preconceived notions of what occurred or what rumors are flying around about someone, and in another chapter the reader gets the truth. For the most part, I liked all of the characters, some more than others, even if some of them didn’t really add much to the story. Below is a summary and my opinion of all the characters:

Beckett: Easily the most likeable of the characters and has one of the more tragic background storylines of the story without it being too over the top. I could relate to her personality as one who’s more closed off to others, but she does seem lost in her own world, and is unable to see anyone else’s issues going on.

Morrigan: The typical mean, pretty, and bitchy girl. Of course, she’s not all that likeable, in fact she’s annoying as hell, but she does grow on you as the story develops. Her parents are actually the worst, and I’m glad mine were never like that, and it makes the reader gain some sympathy towards her.

Anthony: He’s a very complex character for me. Without giving too much away, he’s involved with a racism storyline, and it turns out making him look like the big mean jock who’s a bully. The reader is supposed to hate him until they read his chapter and then the terrible situation with Azize makes sense, and it becomes more complex. Both sides become understandable.

Azize: I felt so bad for poor little Azize. He just wanted to go to the party to try and make a friend, and he’s an extremely nice guy. His issue was dealing with racism in a post-9/11 world, and has a big scene with Anthony as the climax. For that scene, I’ll just say perspective is a powerful thing.

Tommy: He’s an extremely minor character in the overall story, his chapter didn’t do much besides set up Josh’s storyline. He goes with all of his buds in support of Josh who was dealing with a bad breakup with Morrigan.

Brent: To tag along with his best bud, Max, in order to possibly help him find the girl with the weird hat and finally ask her out, and why not rub shoulders with the top of the social food chain? He’s another minor character, kind of an elitist douche trying to climb the social ladder, he pretty much only set up bigger storylines.

Daniel: Another minor character, served as an outside perspective towards bigger storylines, so there’s not much of an opinion on him.

Ryan: He was a reluctant character to like. At first, his reputation is that he’s a total player, a man-whore, you name it. What’s different is that he changes when you read his chapter (again, the power of perspective). His main story arc was to hook up with whatever random hot girl caught his eye that night, but only because that’s what everyone expects from him, and part of him is sick and tired of having to live up to reputation that others dumped onto him. He likes to think he’s more than just what others think of him as, but can’t seem to be able to shake it.

Josh: Josh gets dragged out to the party while dealing with a bad breakup because of his religious views. I felt bad for him and found him relatable: a decent guy who feels like he constantly gets berated for doing the noble and right thing but the whole world is out to get him; the nice guy who finishes last.

Max: I liked him a lot. He simply wants to seek out that mysterious girl with the weird hat and finally try to ask her out, so he goes to the party with his friend, Brent, with the unlikely chance that she will be there too. His chapter was incredibly sweet. Why can’t there be more guys like him out there?

Ashley: Her purpose was to be the supportive best friend, but loses her cool when her ex best friend, Beckett, shows up to the party unexpectedly. She’s popular, but not with the queen-B status. She’s friends with just about everyone, and everyone likes her, and she even has a few unknown suitors that are after her affections. She’s also the mediator of pretty much every conflict in the story and helps resolve a lot of them. She’s like the mom of the group; she stays back, shakes her head at everyone’s mistakes, but will swoop in to help clean up the mess every time, because that’s just what a good friend did.

What I didn’t Like:

Lack of Depth…There definitely is deep subject matter within the story, but the way its initially presented appears shallow and just full of teen angst. The author tries to talk like a teenager, so there are additions of stuff like “and stuff,” “um…,” “and something” and other little speech quirks like that to try and make it feel genuine and almost like reading a diary entry, but it just makes the story feel more juvenile.
It’s So Short…This is an easy book to fly through, and its very short in terms of page numbers, so the reader could easily complete this book in one sitting if they get into it. Personally, I wish it was longer! I wanted so much more to happen, like for each characters to show their resolutions go further and feel more complete. Quite a bit can feel like it’s left up in the air, and there’s a sort of mysterious beauty to that, but I still wish we had more to go on to see how things will change for more of the characters past the party and all that happened during it.

Conclusion:

Overall, an enjoyable read that revolves around a simple setting: a high school house party. I think this book is so amazing and so underrated, but it’s a mostly unheard of title that’s never been on the bestseller list, but that shouldn’t detract anyone from reading it! Personally, I think this story can relate to just about anyone in any way, shape, or form so long as they give it a chance.

The important message to take away from this title is the power of perspective, and similar to Jay Asher’s bestseller 13 Reasons Why, we truly don’t know what is going on in other people’s lives and how important one simple little interaction can affect those around us. We all have our own stories, struggles, and baggage that weigh us down on a daily level, but sometimes if we take a second to try and look at everything from the view of someone else, things are not just black and white, and how complex even a total strangers life can be, even as they pass us by in a single moment of time.

I think Party by Tom Leveen is a great title that can really teach people that things are never as they appear in a non-magic, totally contemporary way, and that there multiple sides to everything, so we shouldn’t just jump to conclusions. It’s been an inspiration for many projects I’ve worked on over the years; a perfect example is my senior thesis project at college, which can be found in my Writing tab up on the main menu! The title is “TGIF!”

Thanks for Reading!

— Nick Goodsell

LGBT, Mystery/Thriller, YA Contemporary Fiction

My Review: One of Us Is Lying (One of Us Is Lying #1): by Karen McManus

May 25, 2019October 15, 2020 nicholasjgoodsell

Publish Date: May 30th 2017
Number of Pages: 361 Pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Genre(s): YA Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, LGBT

Total Star Rating: 4 Stars

It’s John Hughes meets Agatha Christie: The Breakfast Club meets And Then There Were None in this angsty, YA murder mystery debut novel from Karen McManus.

To be honest, I was intrigued to read this title as soon as I’d heard about it because it feels like the mystery genre has been untouched upon for the YA/Teen reading level over the years, and not many titles have been released for Young Adult/Teenage readers. I could totally be wrong on that, but if so, no other mystery titles have had the publicity this book received!

I’m always up for a good whodunnit-style murder mystery, and adding teenagers and modern technology of the 2010’s was something that I hadn’t read really before and wanted to see how it’d be portrayed. The only comparison I could think of that also did it in a really creative and fun way was MTV’s TV show version of the Scream franchise, but that’s more in the horror side, so there’s still a little bit of a gap there to be honest.

As I read this title, I was drawn into the whole mystery that drives the story and how the characters develop as secrets get revealed, unrequited feelings arise, and relationships of all kinds are tested as four students at Bayview High become the prime suspects in another student’s unexpected murder! Sure, the characters start off as the stereotypical character archetypes we’re all familiar with: the brainiac, the bad boy, the jock, and the prom queen. This is where the John Hughes inspiration stops however, because as you read on, the characters continue to prove they are so much more complicated than just the categorization we can’t help but compartmentalize them into.

I had to say that as the big reveal presented itself, I didn’t expect it coming! I truly didn’t know who was behind it the entire time I was reading this story; was it someone else, or was it one of the four main characters who were behind it? The unpredictability of the story was a major plus!

What It’s About:

The story starts out like a familiar 80’s teen flick; five high school students are on their way to detention, but the story really starts when one of them never comes back out alive. The victim, Simon, ran a website of scandals that involved everyone who goes to their school, Bayview High (Yes…it’s very much like Gossip Girl, except everyone actually knows it’s him), and it turned out that the very four others he was in detention with were going to be the topics of his next post, revealing all their darkest secrets to the public. Sounds too good to be a coincidence, right? Well, the cops sure think so, and very quickly, all four of them become the prime suspects in this case. Who could it be?

Bronwyn: The scholar who’s never late and always has perfect grades, but is tired of the weight of the pressure to succeed?

Cooper: The star athlete who suddenly got a little extra swing into his batting average?

Nate: The rebel with an illegal side job, but it’s secretly for a noble cause?

Addie: The prom queen with a spot free reputation, but can barely hide the cracks that threaten to shatter everything?

What I liked:

The Story Is Told From Multiple Perspectives! The story is told from each of the surviving four teenagers and their take on what happened. Each had their own distinct voice and personality that helped the reader get to know them and see them develop as the mystery moved forward. Yes, all of them have dark secrets that they hoped would never see the light of day, but honestly, who doesn’t? The secrets made each character have flaws that make them feel more well rounded and authentic, and anyone who wouldn’t like them because they made less than noble choices is seriously kidding themselves.
There’s Stereotypes, But With a Twist! The author does rely on the stereotypical teen character tropes as a starting point for the book: the outsider, the brainiac, the jock, the criminal, and the princess, but makes them all do a big 180 spin and completely drops the cliché tropes like a trapdoor.
The Mystery! It’s quite simple; I love a good whodunnit kind of mystery, and this one was an interesting addition.
The Author’s Writing Style! Karen wrote in such a way that I know the younger generations that these characters fall under can understand and enjoy within the story; she really gets how their minds work, how they’d react, what they care about; she really understands her characters, their motivations and uses that knowledge to create a vivid and believable dynamic amongst them.
The Romance! I don’t care what anyone says, I’m a sucker for romance! A relationship develops in the story, and it was indeed one of my favorite parts of the whole story. They say a good romance is when the characters shouldn’t have to kiss in order to prove that they have chemistry, and I think that was done exceptionally well. Their interactions were a big high point for me.

What I didn’t Like:

Back to the Clichés…While I did enjoy the obvious stereotypical characters that completely change as the story progresses, I felt like falling back on those as a base for the characters and introducing them in that manner meant that the author could only go so far with their development, thus limiting herself to anything extremely extraordinary. Some could argue that she tries to stretch away from the stereotypes that towards a point, they seem to not even seem all that realistic of characters? Personally, I didn’t feel that way, but I can see how others could give this criticism.
There’s Nothing Learned…While the book was entertaining to read, that just about the only thing that really drove the story: the entertainment factor. I didn’t feel any different after reading it, nor did I have a deep, meaningful lesson or theme that stuck after I finished other than the typical mystery theme of “everyone has secrets”. It’s almost a guilty pleasure in a way: it’s juicy, exciting and you keep reading to see what happens next, but if it doesn’t do any of that, it could start to feel like soda that’s gone flat compared to a freshly cracked open can. There might not be enough substance for more experienced readers to really consider it incredibly worthwhile.
Cheaters…The author does seem to gloss over the fact that two characters, one of them a main character, are caught cheating on their significant other. Some could complain that it wasn’t called out enough to be considered a worry from the author’s standpoint, and I know that cheating girlfriends/boyfriends is a touchy subject.
The Climax…Maybe I’m just too evolved of a reader for much of YA now, but honestly, the big reveal for the climax fell a little flat. Honestly, *mild spoiler alert*……………….but the reveal of a character turning out to be gay felt like a bigger twist.

Conclusion:

Personally, I did greatly enjoy the story, even as someone in the 18-24 age range when I read it. For me, the main cast of characters and their developing group dynamic was the main factor keeping me interested in reading on. I liked the characters immensely, and really became emotionally involved as I got to know them better, and how they came together in order to solve the mystery.

The only question is, how great can a murder mystery really be when it’s mainly character driven? I will leave this review with this: if you’re newer to reading or YA/Teen centric books, beginner level mysteries, or for anyone who was a big fan of TV shows like Pretty Little Liars or Riverdale, it’s probably a great choice but maybe wouldn’t be enjoyed as much for more advanced readers.