Author: Susan Marshall
Series: Standalone
Genre: YA/Contemporary/Bullying
Publisher: Blue Moon Publishers
Publication Date: April 4th, 2017
Edition: Kindle Edition
Source: NetGalley
Purchase: Amazon US | Kobo | Barnes and Noble | Book Depository | iBooks | BAM (No Buy/Pre-Order links available at the moment)
Synopsis:
Dad has moved out and Mom has checked out, leaving the door wide open for the beautiful, erratic Rachel to torment her "loser, loner" younger sister, Nadine. With her family in full meltdown mode, Nadine is alone, trying to cope with Rachel’s increasingly unpredictable moods. Friendless, but determined to turn her life around, Nadine meets Anne, who introduces her to field hockey and to her hot twin brothers, Matt and Cameron.
As Nadine’s star begins to rise, however, Rachel plots to bring her back down, and the tension ratchets up when Rachel starts dating Matt just as Nadine is getting to know Cameron better. When Matt’s interest starts to fade, Rachel goes into overdrive. Is Nadine ready to risk it all in a final showdown with her sister?
Review:
So, This book was fine. The title of this book is a little Cringed-worthy. I had a really hard time connecting to the main character. I understand her situation was not exactly ideal, but in the end, this book was mostly about sibling rivalry. It was a slightly "shallow". There was a greater opportunity that could have been taken with this than there was.
There are some overused cliche's in this book, and at times I wasn't sure when this was supposed to take place. I, personally, find it really cliche to have the older sister who is slightly more popular and "prettier", be mean to the younger sister for pretty much no reason. Then the younger sister "finds herself" and gets a boyfriend when it seems in the past boys didn't really pay attention to her.
Maybe it's a Canada thing, but Hockey isn't a popular sport where I grew up, so I felt a disconnect with that part of the story, and it was kind of boring for me at times. Most books with sports in them bore me. I don't really care about them. I don't hate them, I am indifferent.
I didn't really like that our MC just lets her sister bully her around for as long as she did. It's not like Rachel is the only one dealing with their family breaking apart, she should have been told from the get-go that she was being selfish to think that she was the only one being affected, she shouldn't have been allowed to do anything that she did. I blame the mom character for this, but still, it shouldn't have gone on the way it did. Inactive characters annoy me.
But the thing that kind of rubbed me the wrong way about this book, was how it made people that like being alone sound like sad miserable people. I know I might be more of a minority in this, but there is nothing wrong with spending time alone. And it should never be portrayed that introverts have to "cure" themselves. We aren't sick, we don't need to be cured of enjoying time alone.
Perhaps I just have lower levels of how much I care what other people think, and I have been this way since I was about 13-14 years old, so it's not something I acquired after high school. The opinions of my peers never mattered to me when I was a teen. I cared not what they thought. My reasoning being, people are going to think what they want about me no matter how much I care, so it's pointless wasting energy trying to gain acceptance of people that ultimately don't matter. The only opinion that matters, is the opinion of yourself. That's my message to kids.
There are some overused cliche's in this book, and at times I wasn't sure when this was supposed to take place. I, personally, find it really cliche to have the older sister who is slightly more popular and "prettier", be mean to the younger sister for pretty much no reason. Then the younger sister "finds herself" and gets a boyfriend when it seems in the past boys didn't really pay attention to her.
Maybe it's a Canada thing, but Hockey isn't a popular sport where I grew up, so I felt a disconnect with that part of the story, and it was kind of boring for me at times. Most books with sports in them bore me. I don't really care about them. I don't hate them, I am indifferent.
I didn't really like that our MC just lets her sister bully her around for as long as she did. It's not like Rachel is the only one dealing with their family breaking apart, she should have been told from the get-go that she was being selfish to think that she was the only one being affected, she shouldn't have been allowed to do anything that she did. I blame the mom character for this, but still, it shouldn't have gone on the way it did. Inactive characters annoy me.
But the thing that kind of rubbed me the wrong way about this book, was how it made people that like being alone sound like sad miserable people. I know I might be more of a minority in this, but there is nothing wrong with spending time alone. And it should never be portrayed that introverts have to "cure" themselves. We aren't sick, we don't need to be cured of enjoying time alone.
Perhaps I just have lower levels of how much I care what other people think, and I have been this way since I was about 13-14 years old, so it's not something I acquired after high school. The opinions of my peers never mattered to me when I was a teen. I cared not what they thought. My reasoning being, people are going to think what they want about me no matter how much I care, so it's pointless wasting energy trying to gain acceptance of people that ultimately don't matter. The only opinion that matters, is the opinion of yourself. That's my message to kids.
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