The Boy Recession

by Flynn Meaney

[Raven]

Read this and other reviews at my blog.

Julius P. Heil High has about 250 students, and a general ratio of more girls than guys. But when budget cuts drive the desired football couch across the country, a lot of families pull their boys out to go to private schools where they can have a shot at getting their coveted football scholarships. This has left the school with a 4:1 ratio of girls to boys, making even the geekiest boys a hot commodity. Kelly is a down-to-earth girl, not the type to get noticed by boys to begin with, and because of the lack of boys, her friend Hunter has gotten quite popular. When she realizes that she likes him, she can't think of how she could possibly compete for him. Now she is out to try to make him see her so that she might win his heart.

This book was cute. The idea was really nice and I was looking forward to it, but in the end I was rather disappointed. The story switches points of view between Kelly and Hunter, which I loved. I loved being able to see both sides of things. It really allows you to get to know both characters and it helps give you a connection to them. You want to root for them.

Kelly and Hunter are both really likable. They are also pretty cute together, which is a plus in a romance setting. Their friends are all fabulous as well. They all had their faults and strengths and were just generally well-rounded. The friends were all funny to read about as well, which was nice. It made for quite a few places where I would laugh aloud or smile to myself from something cute happening.

The plot was really simple, and that's where the story suffered. Things felt rushed. There were time skips randomly through things, and things would be mentioned as an after thought. Like, someone would break up and it would simply say that they had broken up "a few weeks ago" and that would be the end of it. No reason for a lot of things. It was all convenient plot points. Things happened because they needed to, not because the story wanted them to. It made the story feel really stiff and jarring. Kelly going out with the Freshman was a great example. By the summary for the book you think there will be more to it, but nope, she goes out with him to try to make Hunter jealous and then they hardly do anything. How can you make someone jealous just by being taken in name with someone. There was next to nothing about their relationship in there. I feel like things wrapped up too nicely. There wasn't enough conflict, there wasn't enough problems. Everything that happened was fairly small and unexciting.

So this was a cute read and I really did enjoy it, but I was disappointed. I had expected it to be quite a bit better from the summary, and there just wasn't enough there to thrill me. This is defiantly something you want to rent or borrow from a friend before you jump into buying it.