Review: Fun surface read with some good depth on the hero's side
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 13, 2014
I was provided with a copy of this book through netgalley in exchange for my honest review.I had a bit of a mixed bag reaction with this one, but in the end the pluses were enough to put this up to 4 stars without halving or rounding. The book started out with a lot of Greek phrases that were left with no explanation....like Geed. I finally looked that one up. Or Rho Gam...still don't know that one. It was a bit frustrating. It wasn't required necessarily, but it just kind of sucked that it was assumed I would know these phrases. Most of that was in the beginning of the book though, and didn't persist.I had a mixed bag reaction to Alexis -- she was totally not a character I think I've encountered before. I couldn't quite figure out what to make of her. On the one hand, she was so totally against the Double Deltsies and we were led to believe that she would be a real oddball in the house....but at the same time, she was coached to look and act the part by her mother, and seemed to do that with no problems. And truthfully, she became friends with a lot of them, so while she wasn't like the worst of them, she wasn't exactly the opposite either...which was sort of what I was expecting. I guess I don't necessarily buy that she could spend so much time acting a part and having people believe it without it being a little bit a part of her. So listening to her complain about how she wasn't going to fit in and wished she could have her own life just didn't always work for me....at least it didn't really make me feel empathy for her.Zach on the other hand....he was pretty easy to like. And kind of an interesting character in his own right. Like seriously, what a crappy back story. I liked that he was broken, but he wasn't all tragic most of the time and was actually quite normal.I even really grew to like Dakota, and that was completely unexpected!!I thought the chemistry between Zach and Alexis was pretty smokin, though I thought the rush into "I love you's" was a bit unexpectedly early, and a bit detracting.The portrayal of the Greek system was actually quite awful in some cases. I have no experience with the Greek system, but the way the girls were treated, the things that went on...well, I hope that this is just a blow up of the stereotype to make it more dramatic, and not an actual reflection of the real thing. Yeah, some of the sisters weren't too bad (Kayla and Kelly), but in general it was rather sad.So after what seems like a lot of negative comments, you're probably wondering how I could give this a solid 4 stars eh?? Well, maybe it is more of a 3.5 star rounded up. Because despite all of the badness above, this book sucked me in. Setting all of ^that aside, this book had HILARIOUS dialogue and exchanges....some really cute friendships and interactions between Alexis, Dak and Zach. And I really enjoyed some of the underlying plot surrounding Zach's past. So when I don't overanalyze it, I end up remembering really enjoying this book. So this is one of those books where if you can set aside some disbelief, it's totally charming, amusing and entertaining with a bit of heart thrown in. I hope you have my kind of luck with it.