Novel Review: Catching Jordan (Hundred Oaks, #1) by Miranda Kenneally

Rating (Out of 5): ~2.5

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Publish Date: December, 2011

Spoilers?: Some, Minor.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Goodreads Synopsis:

One of the boys

What girl doesn't want to be surrounded by gorgeous jocks day in and day out? Jordan Woods isn't just surrounded by hot guys, though--she leads them as the captain and quarterback of her high school football team. They all see her as one of the guys and that's just fine. As long as she gets her athletic scholarship to a powerhouse university.

But everything she's ever worked for is threatened when Ty Green moves to her school. Not only is he an amazing QB, but he's also amazingly hot. And for the first time, Jordan's feeling vulnerable. Can she keep her head in the game while her heart's on the line?

Something Specific:

Quotes:

• "In all actuality, she’s probably giving him a play-by-play account of some romance novel where some chick is in love with a boy who’s really a werewolf, and a vampire who’s really a dragon with enormous wings, and a handsome guy who’s really a vampire.” (Paperback, pg. 41) Where is this book?
  
• "'You know what I think about dreams?’ Ty smiles slightly. ‘What?’ ‘That if you spend too much time dreaming, you’ll stop actually doing. And when you actually do stuff, there’s a good chance things will work out. We make things happen by attacking, not by sitting around dreaming.’” (Pg. 95)
• "'When we’re hooking up, it seems like we have lots to talk about, but maybe that’s just because we’re too busy kissing. This lack of conversation, this isn’t what love is supposed to be like, right? But what happens when you don’t find that right person? Do you just spend the rest of your life in a relationship where the conversation isn’t great, everything isn’t perfect, but it is nice and sweet?” (Pg. 229) “And maybe some people accept that, settle for that, but I don’t want to.” (Pg. 233)
• "...saying that from one to ten, I’m at a six on the pain scale. I don’t even know what the hell that scale is supposed to mean. What does ten represent? Getting your head chopped off? Is one a paper cut?” (Pg. 251)

The Cover:

This cover is alright, and represents the book pretty well. It makes it look like a light-hearted, cute story, and it's more angsty than that, but still. It's not hugely embarrassing, so that's nice, I guess.

Review:

I was giving this series/Kenneally another chance with this book, and it’s still possible I’ll read one of her later books, but for now I’m giving her a break. This one was just very meh and boring and very much not for me. Which sucks, ‘cause I was really hoping to like her books.

I like the premise. Jordan plays football with the boys, she tries her best to be tough, and doesn’t like it when a new boy comes in and tries to take her spot. But she also kind of likes him, and they start going out. But they’re obviously not really working, and besides, she’s got her best guy friend, Henry, who likes her.

One thing, to start with, that bothers me: how the synopsis on the books are so misleading. Maybe they’re better for the later books, but for this one, I went in thinking she’d get a happy ending with the new boy. But he’s not the main boy, he’s not even the better boy, in comparison to Henry. In the second book, Stealing Parker, I went in expecting a nice teacher-student romance, but instead got a creep teacher and a romance with a classmate. If I didn’t go in with such different expectations, maybe I wouldn’t mind so much. But those misleading descriptions just don’t work for me here.

Anyway. I didn’t like Jordan. She’s dumb with her going after Tyler, settling for him, when who she really wants is Henry. Then her whole trying to stay tough for her teammates annoyed me a whole lot. I didn’t see why she didn’t think she could have a boyfriend, or be emotional around them, as long as she stayed in control during games and practice. Especially when she got so defensive in front of them, and yet was crying all the time, to a really annoying point. I just didn’t like her, I guess.

Then there was the whole problem with girls thing. Almost all of the girls that Jordan meets are made to seem like vapid, man-lusting, clingy and dumb cheerleaders. And I understand that maybe it’s just Jordan who thinks this way, but I noticed a similar attitude in Stealing Parker, and it just drove me nuts. It was just such a shallow, one-dimensional way of looking at people, and it annoyed me.

Another thing I didn’t like was the writing. I think it’s too tell and not show, but overall it just didn’t connect with me. It’s boring and the emotions didn’t show through well enough for me. It didn’t keep me interested at all.

I liked some of the boys, and I did like Henry, even if he was really dumb at one point. The whole story was too dumbly emotional and angsty and annoying for me. I didn’t like it, and I was glad when it was finished.

It’s possible I’ll pick another Kenneally book up, but it’ll be a while, at least.

Novel Review: Stealing Parker (Hundred Oaks, #2) by Miranda Kenneally

Rating (Out of 5): ~3-3.5

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Publish Date: 2012

Spoilers?: Not really.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Red-hot author Miranda Kenneally hits one out of the park in this return to Catching Jordan's Hundred Oaks High.

Parker Shelton pretty much has the perfect life. She’s on her way to becoming valedictorian at Hundred Oaks High, she’s made the all-star softball team, and she has plenty of friends. Then her mother’s scandal rocks their small town and suddenly no one will talk to her.

Now Parker wants a new life.

So she quits softball. Drops twenty pounds. And she figures why kiss one guy when she can kiss three? Or four. Why limit herself to high school boys when the majorly cute new baseball coach seems especially flirty?

But how far is too far before she loses herself completely?

Something Specific:

Quotes:

• "It’s a scary thing to wake up and realize the people you need most aren’t nearby anymore… But you keep moving.” (Paperback, pg. 33)
• "I drop the F-bomb at least twice a day. To tell you the truth, I kinda love the word. It’s so versatile. It can be an adjective, a noun, a verb.” (Pg. 35)
• "It makes me sad that he wants to get away from the world so bad. I think it’s because he’s so smart, and sadness comes with knowing so much. I feel sad in that way sometimes.” (Pg. 36)
• "'Sometimes you gotta do what’s right for you and forget about everybody else. All that matters is what you want. What you need.’” (Pg. 211)

The Cover:

This is a pretty average cover, in my opinion. It fits, somewhat. It gives half of a fitting impression of the book. Although, I honestly think this book has a bit more angst or some sort of darker emotion than the lighthearted look the cover has. Overall, though, I don't mind the cover.

Review:

This book was not what I was expecting. A lot of it didn’t go as I thought it would, and it’s taken me a bit to decide whether I like the direction it took or not. I’m still kind of not sure.

Parker used to play softball. But then her mother left, and she quit, and she started fooling around with a lot of different boys. Her best friend, a boy on the boys’ baseball team, convinces her to be the manager of the baseball team, and she meets their new assistant (and then temporary) coach.

I’m not sure how I feel about Parker. She has some rather serious issues she needs to work out, as does pretty much all of her family, although they’re all pretty much handled by the end of the book. Parker makes some mistakes, does some dumb things, but she’s not particularly weak, she doesn’t give something up when she doesn’t want to. And she’s in a much better place at the end of the book.

I liked where her family was at the end of the book. I liked her mom, and how she came in when she was needed and handled things. I didn’t like how her family reacted to what she did in the first place. Parker’s father, I was not a very big fan of. And her brother needed help, which it seemed like he was finally getting.

I liked Drew, Parker’s best friend. I liked Will, and was surprised by his part in the book, although it grew on me rather easily. Something happened between the three of them that I think should have been fixed and talked about a lot sooner, especially with Drew. I was expecting to like Brian, and open to liking him, from the beginning. And at first it was okay. And then he started turning into a creep, and I wasn’t very happy about that. I generally wasn’t very happy with him, really. Although overall I didn’t feel the connection between them as well as I think I should have, or as well as Parker seemed to. There just weren’t enough interactions, or chemistry between them for me.

The whole teacher-student romance thing I don’t mind, as long as the ages are not too far apart. But this one didn’t turn out how I thought it would. And that’s mostly where my problem with this book is, although I’m starting to accept it, because the ending was actually really fitting for Parker. It needed to happen for Parker, too.

The romance wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was good. I was also expecting more sexy stuff (not like actual sex scenes, because that doesn’t usually happen in YA), but there wasn’t very much. And it wasn’t particularly hot, either. But still not bad.

Then there was this whole religious part of the book that I was really not expecting. And kind of rubbed me the wrong way, especially when it seemed to connect with her whole virginity issue. That whole bit just left a bad taste in my mouth, and I hope that it isn’t the same in Kenneally’s other books. 

This book just wasn’t what I expected. I expected to really like Kenneally’s writing, but it didn’t really win me over. I’ll be getting her first book, Catching Jordan, soon, and I hope it’s better. I hope I like it more. If not, we’ll see.