Review: Enjoyed, but am I the only one who noticed how heavily inspired it was by a different author?
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 20, 2014
First, let me say, I enjoyed this book.  Its not my favorite, but I have no problems admitting I cried quite a bit the last 25%.  And I like books that make me feel.  So that's a plus.But if you read Slammed and Hopeless by Colleen Hoover, very little about this book will be new to you.  I'm not sure if it was intentional, and it's not my place to assume it was.  As a friend of mine says, "there are only so many story lines, eventually a couple of books are going to resemble each other."  That's true, but I have a laundry list of similarities that I won't post here as to avoid spoilers.  There were at least a dozen times that I found myself saying, "Wait....that's from Slammed".  Or "Wait...that happened in Hopeless".  It disappointed me that the true originality didn't come in until closer to the end.There were also some character development issues.  For instance, at the beginning, her dad comes across as a pot head whose car is a piece of junk.  Wait...he's the assistant principal?  That threw mw for a loop.  And Ryan is initially presented as a brooding teenager who doesn't so much as speak to Ashlyn. But on the first day of school, he's all smiley and talkative and BFFs with her.  How did that happen?Overall, I enjoyed the read, which I guess is the purpose.  I just don't know if I can overlook the above issues to say it was great.