I won this book as part of Goodreads First Reads competitions. I felt as i had won it, and the author had signed it, i ought to show respect and get to the end. I really struggled to do that.
This book is written in the present tense which I'm not a fan of anyway - nor of books which are written in the first person, which this one is.
The grammar and punctuation was awful - sentences didn't make sense because they lacked a comma or whatever - it just didn't seem like it had been edited at all. All the sentences were extremely short too - no building, explaining etc, things just, were. A lot of, in fact everything, was told not shown. all the characters talk so robotically too. And every new person that is introduced gets a small paragraph explaining what they look like!!
"This is Veronica; Todds's girlfriend," says Jacob. "Tiffany this is Jenny and Mark; also good friends of mine".
Veronica comes off very snooty. She is white with long jet black hair, piercing blue eyes and a tall skinny frame.
Jenny is a very pretty tall skinny with woman with long blond hair and green eyes.
Mark is a handsome man about 6ft tall with a muscular build. He has short brown hair and green eyes. - I have never, ever enchanted this in a book before, and I hope i never do again, its just not necessary. Readers have imaginations, thats the whole point. Give us enough to go on and we will come up with our own images of how people look.
POV changed willy nilly - it got confusing at times. The other thing that really pissed me off is that almost every argument there was, something about their race was used. Im in a mixed race marriage and in 16 years it has only ever been an issue once. I didn't like all the racial slurs that were used, i didn't like it when he got called 'white boy' etc - it just made me uncomfortable. Honestly, my 7 year old can write a better story than this.
"They start making love up against the wall, then inside the closet, and finally on the bed. The sex is mind-blowing. They make love for most of the day. They only stop to eat. she doesn't understand how their connection can be so strong.
Jacob is really upset that this psycho is trying to kill them."
The story was ridiculous. Absolutely the most ridiculously far fetched story i have ever read, and I've read a lot of stories. Eclipse et al is more likely to happen than any of the things that happened in this book. The main characters fall out more times than anything I've ever known then forget with the 'i love you's that follow. Then they have sex. A lot of sex. A lot of mechanical sex. Where he puts his erection inside her. See....... annoying isn't it? Oh and thats just reminded me, everything is followed by exclamation marks! literally! Everything!!
"Don't judge! you know nothing about me! Look me up! My boyfriend is Jacob Latters!" says Samantha. "i'm so tired of everyone judging me!"
Im sorry to leave such a harsh review when i was given the signed copy for free, i really am. But, i feel i should save others from reading 463 pages of absolute drivvle. In fact looking back, I'm not sure why i felt compelled to finish the book. Especially as I'm half was through an assignment for Uni and allowed myself ONE book as a treat! That'll teach me.