Review: Different Teen Romance
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 14, 2012
I received the book free from Library Thing to read and review. I enjoyed this book a lot although the formatting of the book made it difficult to read. The fact that I could overlook that makes it, in my opinion, a great book that is well written. The story concerns Ellen and her very dysfunctional family who move to a new town to escape her abusive father. There, Ellen meets Neil and his friend Josh who have strange powers.  These set Neil apart from the rest of the school crown and lead to a lot of lies and harassment. One thing I found hard to believe was the lack of controls on Ellen and her brother Austin in the book.  I am not sure 16-year olds could just take off for a weekend with some boy after fabricating some story about there being a crowd around, with no one checking it. I wonder what would have happened if Ellen had been treated badly. Would no one have cared?  This is a good example of a situation where there are absolutely no parental controls, and I am not so sure that is very realistic. In addition, a lot happens throughout the book where no one (i.e. responsible adult) seems to care about what is happening. What happens to the relationship that Neil and Ellen have makes for a great story, as well as what the sever devils are. However, I did often feel that Neil had an unhealthy relationship with Ellen, bordering on obsessive. The story is very basic: boy meets girl, girl is interested in boy (and perhaps one other also, though she cannot decide who she prefers initially) and goes on from there. It definitely covers many themes: abuse, bullying, violence, like or love. As I said the fact that I stuck with it even though the formatting made reading difficult, is testament to how well written and interesting the book is.