Chelsea's Adventures in Book Blogging...

I just spent a couple minutes hovering my mouse between 3 stars and 4 stars. Then I still couldn't decide, so I spent a few minutes on people of Walmart. But it's time to face the music.3.5 stars "How the hell did I ever think I could lure the very beautiful, very rich, and very white Brittany Ellis into my very poor, very Mexican, and very dark life?" What pushed me over the edge to give it a 4-star rating was that it's original and not your typical YA novel. What's holding me back from a full four stars? I can't really put my finger on it. As a general rule, I don't like critiquing anything unless I have some brilliant plan of my own for how exactly it could be improved. In this case, I do not. I'm not sure the exact steps that could have been taken to give me what I was looking for out of this book, I just know I didn't get it. It had all the makings to give me a good, visceral response, but it came up short. I like how it shows that each of us is fighting our own battle of some sort, whether you can see it on the outside or not. The relationship development between Brittany and Alex has a nicely timed progression. I've read some complaints that the Spanglish reads a little clunkily. I agree, but I know it's realistic that people would mix Spanish and English, and I don't know how else it could have been written. Maybe it wouldn't seem so odd to someone who, unlike myself, speaks Spanish. When all is said and done, I would still recommend it, but I won't be shouting from the rooftops about it.