Review: Uneven
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 10, 2014
A new adult romance novel, this book feels like an extended wish fulfillment exercise where our young female main is wronged, wronged, vindicated, and avenged.  Our male main is simply an instrument of said vindication, as the sole purpose of his existence seems to be to validate Biz and be generically adorable.As our book begins, Biz is getting ready to start her senior year in college.  She had a rough go of it the previous year, as Burton chooses to illustrate by having the book progress in dual time -- we're taken through the previous year with Biz in alternating chapters.  This doesn't really work, as the "flashback" chapters lack the immediacy of the rest of the story.  It feels like a rushed retelling and the most important parts of the previous year aren't even covered in these chapters, but as part of a conversation Biz has in present day.  I am really unsure why Burton chose this method of telling the story.Biz was a hard character for me to get into.  Having a damaged or "broken" female main is an inescapable part of this genre's conventions, but I find that more and more authors are creating characters who are so delicately constructed that normal parts of life send them into a tailspin.  The story of how Biz gets PTSD is part of the plot so I don't want to get into it too much.  I'll just say that it felt ridiculous.  I wouldn't know how to respond to an actual person who was this fragile.  There were also elements of Biz that just felt special-special, like she’s the ONLY one who can call a certain character by a name because she’s just so winsome, Davis KNEW he had to have her after seeing a picture of her and hearing about how she loved “Less Than Zero,” etc.The decision to have a certain character driven by malevolence rather than thoughtlessness or selfishness also felt over-the-top for me, another way of creating a martyr-like aura for Biz.  Nothing about the resolution of that situation felt authentic.  There was a Lifetime movie style atmosphere of pathos and melodrama hanging over this book that was hard to reconcile with Burton's skillful portrayal of young adult friendships.  I felt like I was reading two different books jammed together.As the ending fell into a series of “Take that, people who don’t like Biz” flourishes, the sense of unreality heightened for me.  There’s the melodramatic confrontation, the elaborately romantic lovemaking, the sudden explosion of wealth, it was like a series of boxes being checked off.I think the author has potential.  There were scenes in this book that were quite charming and the side characters are skillfully drawn.  I just wish she had a lighter hand with some of the elements of the story.