Pretty Crooked

Author: Elisa Ludwig
Release Date: March 13th, 2012
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books 
Genre(s): YA Contemporary Chick Lit 
Pages: 368
*1st book of a series*


~Spoilers are hidden! Highlight the page to see them!:)~

Summary (Goodreads):
Willa’s secret plan seems all too simple: take from the rich kids at Valley Prep and give to the poor ones.

Yet Willa’s turn as Robin Hood at her ultra-exclusive high school is anything but. Bilking her “friends”-known to everyone as the Glitterati-without them suspecting a thing, is far from easy. Learning how to pick pockets and break into lockers is as difficult as she’d thought it’d be. Delivering care packages to the scholarship girls, who are ostracized just for being from the “wrong” side of town, is way more fun than she’d expected.

The complication Willa didn’t expect, though, is Aidan Murphy, Valley Prep’s most notorious (and gorgeous) ace-degenerate. His mere existence is distracting Willa from what matters most to her-evening the social playing field between the have and have-nots. There’s no time for crushes and flirting with boys, especially conceited and obnoxious trust-funders like Aidan.

But when the cops start investigating the string of burglaries at Valley Prep and the Glitterati begin to seek revenge, could he wind up being the person that Willa trusts most?

Review: 

The entire book was very light and fluffy, a general chick- lit book.   Nothing special or particularly squeal inducing. It took a while for Willa to start stealing and doing her Robin Hood-esque routine.  Her logic in becoming Robin Hood was very random.  I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to, ya know, just give them money instead of stealing stuff for them?  I understand there was a revenge aspect to stealing and giving, but because she wasn’t doing all this from the goodness of her heart,  I wasn’t entirely rooting for her every time she “helped” the poorer students out.  I also thought it was weird- and creepy- how Willa was able to find the addresses of the students by Googling it.  That was a tad unrealistic and way too easy.  (I know you can find ANYTHING on the Internet these days- so that MIGHT pass- but googling a person and looking up their address? It has a creep factor of a sparkly vampire secretly watching over you while you sleep.)  Willa is an okay character- nothing amazing.  She’s no Mary Sue, but she’s very… general and not really engaging or interesting. 

The plot was very predictable too.  It was pretty obvious from the beginning who was writing the Buzz, a gossip site for the school, and whether or not Willa was going to get caught. (She does.  The girl was taking lessons from a former “criminal”…) But I didn’t mind that the entire story was very farfetched because it IS chick lit after all.  (It was just that Googling thing that made me raise an eyebrow.)  The villains in the story- the Glitterati- were very shallow and one dimensional.  They weren’t developed at all, just side characters to get the story moving.  If there was anything resembling an actual personality among the Glitterati, it was Cherise.   She was very wishy- washy- but, when the truth was exposed, she turned on Willa, ultimately choosing popularity over friendship (WHAT?)-  but hey, at least she had a character, shallow (Pun totally intended) as it might be.   

It was very obvious that this book was a part of series, as a lot of questions- who was that mysterious man that her mother met? How did Aiden get kicked out?- were unanswered.  But frankly, I don’t think I’ll stick around for the next book.   

Oh! I almost forgot the romance- if you can call it that.  About two-thirds of the book was Aiden chasing Willa and Willa saying, “Noooo I’m totes not in love with you, but you’re so adorable and kinda hot!”, and then the last one-third of the book was made up of Willa and Aiden kissing once and hanging out while volunteering for their crimes (I guess they’re dating now?).  That was pretty much it in a nutshell.  From the VERY misleading summary, I thought Aiden would have more to do with the story (I totally think Tre was wronged for not being included in the description; not because he seems like a potential love interest sorta maybe, but because he did more stuff in the book than Aiden), but he was just a love interest added into the story just because.  (I also sense a potential love triangle coming up…. But eh.  Not interested enough to pick up the second book.)

Overall? It was a very forgettable book and an okay filler to read if you were/are recovering from a VERY light book hangover.  For more intense book hangovers, I recommend a Janette Rallison or Stephanie Perkins book. 
Happy readings!:)

Rating: 2 out of 5

The Distance Between Us

Author: Kasie West

Release Date: July 2nd, 2013

Publisher: Harper Teen

Genre(s): YA Contemporary, Chick Lit

Pages: 320
*Stand-alone*

Summary (Goodreads):
Seventeen-year-old Caymen Meyers studies the rich like her own personal science experiment, and after years of observation she's pretty sure they're only good for one thing- spending money on useless stuff, like the porcelain dolls in her mother's shop. 

So when Xander Spence walks into the store to pick up a doll for his grandmother, it only takes one glance for Caymen to figure out he’s oozing rich. Despite his charming ways and that he’s one of the first people who actually gets her, she’s smart enough to know his interest won’t last. Because if there’s one thing she’s learned from her mother’s warnings, it’s that the rich have a short attention span. But Xander keeps coming around, despite her best efforts to scare him off. And much to her dismay, she's beginning to enjoy his company.


She knows her mom can’t find out—she wouldn’t approve. She’d much rather Caymen hang out with the local rocker who hasn’t been raised by money. But just when Xander’s attention and loyalty are about to convince Caymen that being rich isn’t a character flaw, she finds out that money is a much bigger part of their relationship than she’d ever realized. And that Xander’s not the only one she should’ve been worried about.

~Some Minor Spoilers~

(Highlight the page if you want to see the spoilers)

Review:

          Meh.  I didn’t gush over it, but I didn’t hate it either.  I have a thing for rich hero- poor heroine stories, so that’s why I initially picked this book up.  I regret it now.  The whole story was very bland, and my biggest complaint was the lack of connection I felt with the character.  Even when things happened to the characters, good or bad, I felt nothing for them.

         The basic plot was:  Girl met boy.  Boy met girl.  Boy and girl fell in love, but girl resisted relationship because of X reasons.  Plot “twist” (it did surprise me, but at that point I didn’t care…).  Some things happened, but in the end boy and girl ended up together and rode off into the distance for better things to come…  That’s it. Though I know many authors who can take such a general plot skeleton and twist it into all sorts of ah-mazing stories, this is not the case here.  The author seems to have just used the bare skeleton and maybe a vein here or there.  Not very interesting, and the snarky main character didn’t help either.  Some people might appreciate her (VERY) snarky and straightforward sarcasm-find it refreshing even- but I thought it was confusing and a bit too much.  Though I admit some of it was funny, most of the time, I couldn’t tell if she was joking or if she really meant it.  And half the time, her sarcasm was just plain weird; it wasn’t witty at all.  (Maybe it’s just a “me” thing.)   I know that sarcasm for Caymen was a coping mechanism to hide her feelings and her  true self- not a spoiler, it’s pretty obvious from the beginning- but that wasn’t really explored in the novel.  If the author had gone into it more, I think it would have really made the sarcastic aspect of Caymen seem reasonable and even enjoyable.   

      In general, I really wish the author had made Caymen seem real and not so bland.   Even when she gets excited, it feels so unenthusiastic.  (I’m not sure if it was the writing style or if it was just me. ) Her way of speaking seems detached, and at times I felt like she was talking in a monotone voice.  It seems her whole life revolves around the shop, her mom, and Xander.  Any mention of school is brief- just that she goes to it. It made her unrelatable and boring (she did have a very different life and upbringing compared to most people, I’ll consider that, but so does almost every other YA characters, and many were still interesting to read about).   And of course there’s the dad thing- which **Spoiler** is left open at the end.   This is all fine and dandy- as it gives the ending a kind of hopeful feeling- but like every issue addressed in the book, it’s not very impacting.  By the end, I really didn’t care whether she met her dad or not.

         The romance aspect was bland also.  No sah woons or even regular swoons about anything Xander did.  He had no real character; he was very generic: sweet, loveable, a gentleman.   Now, there’s nothing wrong with a generic “nice” guy, but they’re not very memorable.  I mean, plenty of guys in books are “nice”, AND they are sah-woon worthy (… like Finny.  Heartbreak </3).  Even as I write this review a few days later, I have a hard time remembering simple details about him (hair color, eye color, what he did in the novel besides bringing hot chocolate, etc).  I do remember Xander ‘s daddy-problems, but like everything in this novel (how many times have I said this now? I think I’ve also said “in general” quite a few times too), it wasn’t explored well- it was just told to us- and no real closure was reached.  (To be fair, even when closure was reached  ****Spoiler**** with the grandparents and the mom ***end spoiler***, my reaction was, “eh”.)  There was a lot of telling about his character as well, instead of us being able to deduce it from his action.

     Overall, the entire book doesn’t make me go, “Wow, I need to go out there and fight with every inner being of my soul for the cause of social injustice!”  But this book WAS filed under chick lit, so I guess it wasn’t supposed to be that type of book.   (Then again, it could be considered a book between "heavy contemporary" and "chick lit" because the social issues her mother had and had tried to instill into Caymen was really prominent throughout the novel (it was the basis of the entire book), but the reasons behind her prejudice didn’t have much depth.   As with everything in novel, I felt it should have been explored more. I still had questions by the time I finished reading.)

   My parting statement here? No connection with the characters and vagueness make for a very bored reader. 

Happy readings!

Rating: 2 out of 5