Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Genre: Romance, Teen, Drama
Recommend:
SPOILERS
Summary:
Kihanna Evers has been sent to live with her newly found father, Mark Evers- the founder of a hit social networking site. Moving to live in his mansion in California, she becomes acquainted with her fashionista stepmother and inappropriate step-brother.
At first dazzled and repulsed by the vast amount of chandeliers that adorned her house, Kihanna wastes no time in planting her feet in her new world and becoming her own.
Staying true to herself, she opposes her stepmothers attempts to treat her like a Barbie and she doesn't fall victim to intimidation from the school Queen Bee, Jacqueline. Inexperienced in the relationship department, Kihanna finds herself to be sought after by many of guys that are most wanted themselves.
Thrown into a world of money and appearances, Kihanna soon realises not everything is how it seems and everyone hides a secret or two.
At first dazzled and repulsed by the vast amount of chandeliers that adorned her house, Kihanna wastes no time in planting her feet in her new world and becoming her own.
Staying true to herself, she opposes her stepmothers attempts to treat her like a Barbie and she doesn't fall victim to intimidation from the school Queen Bee, Jacqueline. Inexperienced in the relationship department, Kihanna finds herself to be sought after by many of guys that are most wanted themselves.
Thrown into a world of money and appearances, Kihanna soon realises not everything is how it seems and everyone hides a secret or two.
My Thoughts:
Where to even begin with this one...
Problems:
Where to even begin with this one...
Problems:
- Punctuation: Oh my dear... The punctuation throughout this novel drove me mad. The amount of times where a paragraph was constructed of tiny sentences that made little sense with a follow on sentence afterwards, when there should have been a comma rather than a full-stop to split it up. There were also some grammar errors and mistypes but this may be simply due to the conversion to e-book. The dialogue also needs major work; it all just spewed out as if it were a first draft and had no realistic padding to it all. So much of the novel is a stream of consciousness that is meaningless or mind-numbingly contradictive and/or boring.
- Kihanna: I wanted to give her a smack with a brick at times. She was just so unlikable. At first I liked her attitude towards her step-mother and for standing up for herself but then she really got annoying. If she were 14 years old, her personality would've fit but for 17 she just came across so self-absorbed. She was so ungrateful to her stepmom even though she wasn't actually that bad- yeah, she may have wanted to take some control but it was just to protect what was important to her. It's also overkill on the "new girl" being "gorgeous/hot" without even knowing and having every. single. male. character. lust. after. her. ""Why would he be nervous? It's just a concert." "Because he likes you." I shake my head. "He does not. He's just being nice." They all laugh. "Whatever you say."" *smacks head off desk* Just no. She claimed to be so different and hadn't even kissed anyone by the age of 17, she was pure and had saved herself and yet after two months of being with Ty she was going to sleep with him!? Waiting that long and then being willing to that is just so craaaazy and idiotic and just didn't ring through with her personality. She didn't even hold true to herself on the clothes and wardrobe front.
- Secrets: We all love that dark character with a secret? The mysterious one who drops hints throughout the story and we try to guess what it is. But not when it's just thrown in randomly and with whatever characters take your fancy!! ""You didn't know me a year ago," he snaps. "You don't know what I've been through or what I've learned in that time."" So Toby is a lighthearted flirt, and then completely out of character blurts that, and then reverts to the inappropriate flirt again without even another flicker of a haunted past... And then of course there's Gabe and Ty with the messed up pasts and secrets too but let's just skip over them.
- Plot: The whole plot in general was all over the place. It was like someone who was writing their first novel and wanted to mash up all their ideas into the one book. Kihanna had too many love interests, (The pool guy was totally irrelevant and not a necessary addition) and there were too many sub-plots happening that it didn't all tie together. There was the romantic story, the aspect of Kihanna entering her new life and getting to know her father, her mother dying (cliché, guessed it from the start), uncovering the secrets of Gabe etc, dealing with making new friends and dealing with the bitch... but of course to top it all off it ended in a murder attempt!!! The part where Kihanna drinks a few shots of Tequila and immediately loses it is too far fetched as well, granted she had never drank before but it just didn't fit with a realistic representation of getting drunk.
I thought I'd like this book but it just fell short on too many levels. There was a lot of potential but the author tried to cram in too much rubbish and not focus on building a sustainable, plausible and solid story-line. The pace was all over the place and it was a struggle to even finish. I don't really like writing bad reviews and have always tried to write negative ones with constructive criticism and hope I have this time as well. It was too cliché and all over the place with a lack of structure. The characters were plentiful with a lack of purpose and definition and depth. There was a constant repetition of language and phrases which made it a dull read.
Overall I feel this would succeed a LOT more if aimed at younger teens. It just didn't do it for me as a YA novel and therefore would not recommend to more mature readers. (Or readers with a habit of tearing books apart and analysing them in way too much detail!)
