Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Goodreads Summary:
When Carlos Fuentes returns to America after living in Mexico for a year, he doesn’t want any part of the life his older brother, Alex, has laid out for him at a high school in Colorado . Carlos likes living his life on the edge and wants to carve his own path—just like Alex did. Then he meets Kiara Westford. She doesn’t talk much and is completely intimidated by Carlos’ wild ways. As they get to know one another, Carlos assumes Kiara thinks she’s too good for him, and refuses to admit that she might be getting to him. But he soon realizes that being himself is exactly what Kiara needs right now.
My Review:
It's not often I write a review on a book I didn't particularly care for. Maybe it's because being a writer myself, I don't want to knock the writing of someone else - after all, I know how much heart and soul one puts into their pages. Maybe it's because I'm sure plenty of other people liked what they read.
Whatever it is, I'll say I thought RULES OF ATTRACTION was just okay and give a couple of reasons why:
I found it to be a little slow to read and very predictable. Okay, so I know that kind of comes with the territory of Contemporary YA, but there were just too many moments were Ms. Elkeles set the reader up to know exactly what was going to happen next, because she told so much, rather than showed (I can't believe I just said that, knowing it's a big writer's faux pas - but it really was true with this book).
I particularly didn't like that Carlos would think his thoughts out loud, telling me how much he couldn't stop thinking about Kiara or how he felt like he didn't deserve her. It made me not connect with his character as much as I did with Alex, from the first book.
I did like PERFECT CHEMISTRY better, probably because Alex really was a bad ass, unlike Carlos in this book, who tried to be...but fell flat. I guess in the end, it was what was to be expected. I guess it left me just wanting a little more. And again, the epilogue - I almost didn't even read it. It was completely unnecessary and didn't do the book any justice...although I will admit, it was better than the epilogue from the first book.
Net/net: Just okay. Easy read.
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