New England Rocks

by Christina Courtenay

[Leah]

Sometimes I can get a bit tired of reading Chick Lit, and sometimes I just need something else just for a different change of pace, different kinds of characters. Generally, when I’m looking for something else to read I’ll pick up a YA/NA novel or possibly even a psychological thriler, but mostly it’s a YA/NA novel. So when I was offered Christina Courtenay’s debut young adult novel to review, I jumped at the chance. It’s the first in a trilogy, and I thought it sounded really interesting.

Unfortunately, though I raced through it, it wasn’t really my cup of tea. To me, it felt like any kind of generic YA novel you can find. There was nothing about it that made me stand out. Rain is your typical moody/gothic teenager, which I think’s only passable if you’re a young teenager, but since Rain is nearing adulthood, I felt she just came off as quite standoffish and rude. I got that she didn’t want to be in New England, got that she wanted to be back in the UK, but sometimes in life you just have to suck it up and get on with it, and I’d have preferred if she’d done that. I love a rebellious character, but for some reasons the methods and tactics Rain employed just didn’t work for me and she came off as spoilt.

One of the things I actually enjoyed about the novel was the football. I am a massive football fan right here and no novels ever contain football, because everyone in the world assumes it’s a man’s game and that girls don’t understand it. Which is wrong. Because they do. I do. So I quite enjoyed that aspect, even more so with Rain being on the guys’ team. I did cringe a tad at some of the terminology – corner shots, for example, when they’re just corners to anyone else, it was very Americanised how they explained it, but apart from that I thoroughly enjoyed the footie aspect. It was much-needed.

New England Rocks, though, didn’t really work for me. It says a lot when the only good aspect of the novel was the football, something which wasn’t all that major in the novel, though it was a very welcome addition. Apart from that tidbit, I felt it was just your a-typical YA novel – beautiful girl who rebels, guy with tats who has a girlfriend but fancies the new girl, girlfriend of said guy is a total barbie doll… Chick Lit has cliches, and so, it seems, does YA and I just wasn’t a massive fan of New England Rocks. I probably won’t read the rest of the trilogy. I’m sure this novel has its fans, but not me, I’m afraid.