**I received my copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.**
**DID NOT FINISH - 30%**
One of the major draws to this book was the cover. It is SO pretty, but it's masking a huge mess.
The MC is a judgmental bitch
I had grown up with girls like the one in front of me. Everything about her was fake, from her eyelashes to her boobs. Private school at St. Maria's had prepared me for two things at the same time: fake girls and dealing with the people you never really want to be associated with. This girl was exactly that.
A paragraph later...
"I hate freshman. They always think they're better than the rest of us. Did you see how she talked down to us?" I had no choice but to talk down as they were seated. She wasn't the brightest, I guess.
This girl Mari is seriously such a stuck-up bitch that it almost seems like a joke. Maybe they think you talked down to them because YOU DID RIGHT AFTER YOU COMPLETELY JUDGED HER ON HER LOOKS. She comes to college and observes all theses so-called stuck-up, stupid "whores" when in REALITY, Mari is exactly that (maybe minus the whores part). In psychology, we call this projection. It's a form of defense mechanism where someone cannot deal with their shortcomings, so they project them onto others. In this example, Mari is a judgmental bitch, but she can't deal with that so thinks basically all other females are judgmental bitches except her.
I pulled out my book to ignore all the girls who were made out to the max with heavy makeup, perfect tans, and shorts that showed off more than just their legs. I couldn't tell if the goal was to show more boob or more butt in what the girls were wearing. In the middle of the twenty or more girls was the brunette from my first day of checking into the dorms (note: a.k.a. the girl mentioned above). She looked even more made up than when I saw her. The poor guy she was after was in the sports complex.
This is just about some poor girls sitting outside the sports building! No wonder nobody likes you!
The writing is pretty bad
The dark auburn color was different. It was almost a chocolate brown, but the red gleaming in it made it otherwise. He was a guy, but the color was just actually pretty. The red was more subtle than my own bright-red hair. I would have given anything to grow up with hair as dark red as his.
Let me just point out first that apparently guys aren't allowed to have "pretty" hair but this guy defies that rule. Then think about all the different ways you were just told that this guy has dark red hair. Or is is a chocolate brown?
I looked between them. I was outnumbered. I didn't mind my morning classes. Maybe I was the only crazy person in the room. Ty and Sim both looked at me for agreement. I looked between them and shrugged. What could I say? I kind of was a morning person.
This is in response to two characters discussing how much they hate morning classes. All Mari has to say is that she enjoys her morning classes because she's a morning person. But instead we get tons of rant-y style description. This is a problem is rampant in this book. Another example:
Prof. Edwards was the reason I was at Morton College (note: I thought it was Morton Carole? idk). He'd been my tutor the summer before my senior year in biology. I did an independent study of biology over the summer to not have to use time during the year taking the class. Prof. Edwards was a friend of my grandfather, and had been in the Chicago area over the summer. Grandfather lined him up as my mentor for the independent study, and thus began my summer of biology with him.
Seriously?? Cut the bullshit, I get it - you studied biology over the summer!
Every character is a shallow stereotype
We have the nice Indian roommate with a sari-clad mother and turban-wearing father. They have Indian accents and control the roommate's life and want her to be a doctor. The roommate however is completely boy-obsessed and focuses on nothing else. Oh that clash between teenagers and their traditional parents...
There's also bitchy blonde "Barbies" that do cheerleading and "throw themselves at every guy" (seriously, stop saying this on every page). They are brainless, cloned sluts that exist solely to sleep with as many guys as possible and start bitchy catfights over guys. With this attitude I'm not surprised Mari doesn't have any friends.
I couldn't care less about the romance
The romance had barely developed (or maybe that's as far as it was going to be?) but I could tell it was going to be one of those amazing if-he-stalks-me-he-loves-me type of things and I really just checked out at that point. Not interested at all.
What is this about??
Where I stopped, 30%, I had yet to see anything that had to do with fantasy, science fiction, time travel, or really anything except a contemporary plot. There was a little bit of "where did the boys come from" but just because you can't trace someone's whole elementary school life on Google, doesn't mean that they appeared out of thin air. I can tell that the author had some good ideas, but really struggled to connect everything together. If this book was a chain, it would have some seriously flawed links.