Review: 2 STARS...A Big Disappointment
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 10, 2013
I was really excited about this one, I really liked the first book.  I found the mafia story line really intriguing and I loved the mystery of it.  Unfortunately, there wasn't very much of that in this book.  What I got instead was a really lame romantic triangle.  Who will she choose, Nixon or Chase?  Who cares!********************************SPOILER ALERT!!!!**********************************Nixon and Trace are together and in love.  Then some mafia stuff happens (I won't spoil that because it's the only interesting part in the book), and Nixon and Chase have to lie and say Chase is Trace's boyfriend.  This is to protect Trace.  So they walk around campus and pretend to be in love.  Chase falls in love with Trace, but Trace (who is apparently is clueless and dumb as dirt) thinks he's just acting.  Even though it's obvious to everyone around them that Chase is in love with her.Nixon fakes his own death to reveal the real killer of Trace's parents.  Trace is devastated for about 3 days and then she decides she loves Chase and needs to let Nixon go.  I mean, it's been 3 days, who mourns longer than that?  She's making out with Chase and laughing in class!  Chase feels conflicted, but not enough to stop trying to get in the panties of his life-long best friend's girl (even after he finds out Nixon is alive).  What an awesome friend!  The selfishness of them both was cringe inducing.  I was rooting for them to end up together because I hated them both.Reading Chase's POV chapters was excruciating.  How could a guy that wimpy be in the mafia!  He was so pathetic.  He worked much better as a minor secondary character in the first book.  And after all his incessant whining about Trace (the love of his life), it takes him approximately 12 hours to get over her and start looking at Phoenix's sister in a new light.  Cue eye roll and set up for the next book.Nixon and (surprisingly) Phoenix were the saving grace of this book.  I was really intrigued by Phoenix's chapters and wanted to know more about his life.  But I was really annoyed by the fact that his hands being broken (BY A HAMMER) was never mentioned and he seemed to have full use of them.  How is that possible?I still liked Nixon's character, except when he was pining over Trace.  She didn't deserve him.  And I really did want him beat the hell out of Chase at the end.There will be at least one more book, but I think I'm done with this series.  I can't take another stupid love triangle.  I do think Ms. Van Dyken is a good writer, but I just could not like this one.