Review: An easy-going piece - perfect distraction
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 27, 2012
This story immediately caught my attention. The synopsis screams the sort of thing I used to read a lot of as a teen. It's not the sort of book that I still read very often now that I'm a bit older, but occasionally I do enjoy a foray back in this sort of genre. I knew as of the get go that this book was going to be one of those forays.I have to say I really enjoyed this blast from the past!That isn't to say that the book is without its problems. For example, I wasn't sold on how much of a creep Max was. Maybe it would have been possible to paint him as such a character with ulterior motives, but Max's never really rang true to me. I got that he was being an arse but his actions didn't really fit for me. It might have helped to see more backstory of the rivalry between Max and Zack and why Max hates him so much.That was my one major sticking point, though. For the rest of it, I enjoyed this fluffy, light romance. It consisted mostly of how stricken Chloe is about the unofficial Zack Warren fan club that she set up when she was young but soon abandoned after Zack stole the pink streamers from her bike, resulting in her deciding to hate him forever rather than love him. Unfortunately for her, under her best friend's ministrations, the unofficial Zack Warren fan club became a living, breathing monster in its own right - a monster to be reckoned with. Even worse, she's still considered the founder and everything about the group is attributed to her.Zack meanwhile has been fighting his attraction to Chloe for years now. After losing his mother at a young age, he chose to protect himself from future heartache by not allowing anyone to get close enough for him to have feelings for them. Chloe gets past all his barriers, though, and with his father having just married her mother, he's going to be forced to spend rather a lot of time around this very dangerous girl. (Dangerous to the barriers he's erected around himself).The story is very easy and slow-going. It's not mile-a-minute or anything like that, but it never fails to keep your attention and even induces a few chuckles with some laugh out loud moments. It's short and sweet but, apart from the Max weirdness, it really works well!On a side note, poor any future half siblings! Can you imagine being a kid having to explain to the other kids at school that your brother and sister are dating? Owch.