Love Story

Jennifer Echols

Paperback: 256 pages

Young Adult, Contemporary Romance

Publisher: MTV Books

ISBN-13: 978-1439178324

Release Date: July 19, 2011

Overall Rating 4.5 Stars

Erin Blackwell is from Kentucky and her family owns and runs a famous horserace farm, though she loves horses and the farm that’s not want Erin wants to do with her life. Erin wants to write books, romance books to be specific, so Erin is going to college in New York City, creative writing will be her major. Her grandmother on the other hand would like Erin to go to college and get her business degree so she can run the farm. So when the two bump heads on the subject grandma decides that Erin should live her dreams just not with the family money. Grandma takes away Erin’s inheritance and her money for college, and then gives it to Hunter Allen.

Hunter is the stable boy, he lives on the farm and though the both he and Erin are the same age they aren’t friends. Erin’s stayed away and given him space throughout their whole lives because both their families share the same family tragedy. So while Erin is working trying to for pay school and food, her grandmother has given Hunter everything that should be Erin’s and is now sending Hunter to Erin’s school. Erin writes a short story in her creative writing class letting her pen write the fantasy her mind has been playing for a while now. A fantasy about a rich girl and poor stable boy, who just happens to look like Hunter. Little does Erin know that Hunter has now switched to her writing class.

This book was good in so many ways. I love Jennifer Echols by the way, so when I got the chance to read this I had such high hopes, and Love Story didn’t let me down. I loved everything about this book, it was serious, heartbreaking, beautiful, charming, funny, and so many other things. It was much more than just some teenage romance. Jennifer Echols has a way of making the characters real and giving them problems that make the reader relate.

Erin and Hunter are in each other lives more than they have ever been before and that’s where lines get crossed and feelings become unclear. But of course things can’t always skip to the happy ending, where would be the fun in that. Jennifer Echols makes this web of lies, and problems that the two have to overcome and work out before anything can really happen between them. I love that things weren’t as black and white we were made to think. There are secrets that we could have never guessed. One of the main things I love about Ms. Echols books is the realism, the conflicts and solutions are ones that could be seen in everyday life, and Love Story is just as real as any other. The ending was one of the realists ending to a story I have ever read, Ms. Echols leaves things to the unknown proving that you never truly know how life would turn out. This book was amazing in so many ways and I would recommend it anyone.

{Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book enable my review. All opinions presented here are my own.}

To learn more about Jennifer Echols or her books please visit her website.

Bleed

Laurie Faria Stolarz 

Young Adult, Contemporary Fiction

Paperback, 240

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Release Date: April 22, 2008

Overall Rating: 0.5/5

Over the course of a single summer day, ten teenagers in Salem, Massachusetts, will discover important truths about themselves and each other. 

There is Nicole, whose decision to betray her best friend will shock everyone, most of all herself; Kelly, who meets the convicted felon she has been writing to for years; Maria, whose definition of a true friend is someone who will cut her. Then there is Sadie, a chubby eleven-year-old whose mother forces her to wear a "please don't feed me" sign stapled to her shirt; while Joy, a fifteen-year-old waitress hoping for true intimacy narrowly escapes a very dark fate. Derik discovers that his usual good looks and charm won't help him hold onto the girl he wants, while nineteen-year-old drifter, Mearl, is desperately looking for a place to call home. Sean is torn between his loyalty to his girlfriend and the possibility of finding something more with her friend, while Ginger's single-minded pursuit to bring down her nemesis only proves that they may be more alike than she thought.

Seamlessly woven together, this incredibly powerful and compelling collection of stories chronicles the very real trials of today's teen experience.

Um?

I read the book because I like this author. All of the other things I read by her I ended up buying and rereading. All but this one. Honestly I just couldn’t see the reason for this at all. I guess you could say that some kids go through some of the things that the characters went through, but that's about it. The book had no kind of anything. It just wasn't a book for me.  Maybe I didn’t get it and that’s fine but this book did noting for me. I read it and was so upset that I wasted my time. Maybe someone will read it and love it.