Notable (Smith High, #3)

by Marni Bates and Ni Genovese

I take no prisoners. I am Chelsea Halloway and I will happily destroy your social life if you mess with me. Just ask anyone. There is no situation I cannot handle. Divorcing parents? No problem. An ex-boyfriend who wants to date Smith High Schools biggest geek instead of me? Just a matter of time before I can make him see reason. At least, until my parents decide to ship me off on a study abroad trip to Cambodia. Now instead of being admired as the queen of the Notables, I am stuck with a bunch of college students who do not take me seriously, and a professor who accidentally landed himself on the wrong side of a drug lord. And it is up to me to get us all out of the country alive even the annoying jerk with the green eyes who will not stop calling me princess. Oh yeah, what could possibly go wrong?

• ISBN13: 9780758269393
• Publish Date: 29 October 2013 (first published 1 January 2013)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Out of Print: 25 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Kensington Publishing
• Imprint: KTeen
• Format: Paperback (UK Trade)
• Pages: 272
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

Notable was not what I was expecting at all! It was still a super fun read, but it was way too over-the-top and unbelievable for me to fully get into the story. We learned in Invisible that Chelsea was being shipped off to Cambodia while her parents get divorced. Her father pulled some strings to get her into a study abroad program through the college where he works. It's suppose to let her get her crap together, since she has bad grades and drinks too much. Well, the trip most certainly is educational and allows Chelsea to learn more about her true self, but not in the way her parents were hoping.

I actually loved how Notable was mostly set in Cambodia. I haven't read many books where the characters are traveling, so it was fun. But then things take a serious turn. Chelsea walks in on their supervising professor getting beat up by some thugs. Then she accidentally runs off with some cocaine (or heroin, they're not really sure) that belongs to the biggest drug lord in the country. Oops. So yeah, this plot is completely over-the-top and eye-roll inducing, but I enjoyed reading it. Where my issues with it came in, was that Chelsea decides to handle this situation herself by meeting with the drug lord to exchange his drugs for the teacher instead of going to the embassy for help. Whatever.

The romance in Notable was very light. Chelsea winds up falling for one of the "geeks" on the trip, Houston. The two bicker and straight up argue a lot. I liked how he remembered her from some past event, but she didn't quite remember him until he confronted her. Chelsea has not always been the nicest person, but she does change and feels bad for how she treated Houston. There wasn't too much development though, since the group is busy trying to figure out how to handle this situation, so there's really no time for romance at all.

Notable was fun, if totally unbelievable. I can appreciate it for what it is though, but if only a few plot points had been changed a bit, I would have liked it more. There was too much suspension of belief for my liking.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[Rowena]

A lot of this book is cute and a lot of it made me want to smack some sense into both Houston and Chelsea. Chelsea held her own against Houston and I really enjoyed her sense of humor. I also enjoyed getting to know the both of them but there were times when Houston's attitude toward Chelsea got to be a bit much. I wanted to smack him in the head on multiple occasions. But in the end, I liked him. And I liked him for Chelsea. Chelsea is a lot older than her age and I thought an older guy suited her more than the high school boys like Logan. She just seemed so much older than Logan in this book. I will admit that there were times when I had to put two and two together because I didn't read the other books in this series but for the most part, this book reads as a stand-alone.

Chelsea came a long way in this book. You can see that she was struggling with a lot of things but she dealt with those issues in a pretty grown up way. I came to really like her character but I could tell that had I read the other books, I probably wouldn't have liked her much. Still, this was an enjoyable read. One that was quick and cute and sometimes, that's exactly what you need.