Review: "Art Girl" meets "Bad Boy"... What could *possibly* go wrong? ;-)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 27, 2014
Books told from the first person point of view often leave half of the story untold. One of the ways that authors get around that is by alternating the point of view between the main characters and that can often feel like “cheating”. Not so in Janelle Stalder’s novel, Brush Strokes. Ms. Stalder alternates between the first person points of view of Olivia Banks, a senior in high school who has long been known as the “weird art girl”, and Colt Morgan, a bad boy who lives next door to Olivia. Filled with many of the tropes found in romance novels (such as the hero and heroine both like each other a lot more than the other believes), Brush Strokes does not come across as clichéd because of the introduction of Olivia’s art, and through her art, Olivia discovers that worst-case scenarios aren’t always what they first seem to be.I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and I look forward to Ella’s story. The characters are believable and the story had enough twists and complications to keep my attention throughout. Because the characters are believable, and because many teenagers are finding themselves in sexual situations, I would caution that this book be read only by mature readers 16+. The sexual situations are not extremely graphic, but they are present. The book does have a non-cliffhanger (yay!), happily-ever-after ending.