Novel Review: Crossing the Line by Simone Elkeles

Rating (Out of 5): ~2-2.5

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: HarperTeen (HarperCollins)

Release Date: June 2018

Spoilers?: No.

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

Goodreads Synopsis:

A high-stakes story of star-crossed lovers from Simone Elkeles, the New York Times bestselling author of the Perfect Chemistry series

To escape his abusive stepdad, bad boy Ryan Hess runs from his tiny Texas border town to Mexico. But his plans to keep his head down and stay out of trouble are shattered the minute he meets the beautiful and totally out of his league Dalila Sandoval.

Dalila Sandoval shouldn’t even know someone like Ryan Hess. The daughter of one of the wealthiest lawyers in Mexico, Dalila is focused on studying and planning for her bright future. Ryan is only a distraction from her dreams, but she’s never felt more alive than when she’s by his side.

Ryan and Dalila are wrong for each other in every way. And yet they can’t resist the sparks that fly when they’re together. But their love is like a flame burning too close to the fuse.

Something is going to explode. Will their love be strong enough to survive? Or will it burn them both?

The Cover:

Meh. It's very typical romance couple. The title is really the only interesting part about it, but still nothing really catches my attention or makes me want to pick it up. Aside from expecting/wanting more intense of a romance.

Review:

I've enjoyed Elkeles' books in the past, quite a lot really. So I didn't expect this, or to feel this way about it.

I will admit that the beginning of this book reminded me a bit of All the Pretty Horses, which is a book I hated when I read it in high school. Most of the book didn't really have that feel, though, once I got into it.

I don't want to spoil how any of this happens, but I will say this book does not have a happily every after. I didn't expect it to go this way for most of the book, even really until the end when it happened. It doesn't happen often, and I really don't care for tragedies. They're not my kind of thing.

To be fair, though, I also didn't really feel much for this book. The characters were okay, but I wasn't all that into the romance, I wasn't even really feeling the chemistry. In the beginning it felt okay, but instead of getting better, the plot just seemed to drag on. They were put in a pretty impossible situation, including where some adults could have helped and instead decided to keep them out of the loop on everything. And how it all wrapped up and the big surprise bad guy (which wasn't terribly surprising) ended up seeming rather unrealistic.

I really wanted to like this book, but I just don't think it was meant to be for me. It had a lot in the way of it, it seems. And I can even, kind of, maybe, see how that ending was okay. But mostly I'm just not happy about it.

Novel Review: Wild Cards (Wild Cards, #1) by Simone Elkeles

Rating (Out of 5): ~4
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Publish Date: October 1st, 2013
Spoilers?: No.
Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Book Depository. Powells.
Teaser Tuesday. Wishlist Thursday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

After getting kicked out of boarding school, bad boy Derek Fitzpatrick has no choice but to live with his ditzy stepmother while his military dad is deployed. Things quickly go from bad to worse when he finds out she plans to move them back to her childhood home in Illinois. Derek’s counting the days before he can be on his own, and the last thing he needs is to get involved with someone else’s family drama.

Ashtyn Parker knows one thing for certain--people you care about leave without a backward glance. A football scholarship would finally give her the chance to leave. So she pours everything into winning a state championship, until her boyfriend and star quarterback betrays them all by joining their rival team. Ashtyn needs a new game plan, but it requires trusting Derek—someone she barely knows, someone born to break the rules. Is she willing to put her heart on the line to try and win it all?

Something Specific:
Quotes:

• "Everyone has a purpose in life, he once told me. Finding out yours is crucial to knowing who you are and who you want to be.”  (Hardback, pg. 50)
• "‘I guess havin’ hope is better than givin’ up and thinking life will suck forever.’” (Pg. 215)

The Cover:

I don't mind this cover, but I don't really think it fits. The images work, but the grainy, old-photograph look doesn't, in my opinion. It makes it look like an old-American tale of a sports hero, which it isn't, or like it's about some old tragedy, possibly a happily-ever-after romance story, which it also isn't. It's a very lighthearted, modern story. There isn't even a huge time skip at the end where the happy-ever-after couple is old and married with kids. Aside from that, the couple and football image work.

Review:

It’s been a while since I’ve read an Elkeles book. I’ve read all but her first series (which I have, and should get around to… at some point), and enjoyed all of them. And I guess I had missed her stories a bit. They’re dramatic, and romantic, and sweet, and cute, and funny. They’re lighthearted, cute stories, sometimes steamy, always good.

Her last series, the Perfect Chemistry one (and the Paradise one, I suppose), had a darker edge to it, so I was expecting that from this one. But instead, this one was pretty much solely cute and sweet, with a very little bit of angst worked in. It was a nice reprieve. It was a good story, very fast to read. Very good.

There’s Ashtyn, who’s on the football team, dating the quarterback, with a no-good father. Then her sister comes back to stay with them, and she brings back a young son and step-son Ashtyn’s age whose father is in some submarine in the ocean somewhere. Derek got kicked out of his last private school, and is not looking forward to staying with his step-mom, who he doesn’t like. But then he starts getting close to Ashtyn. And then his pushy, distant grandmother tries getting in contact with him.

I liked both Ashtyn and Derek, and the two together. It was obvious from the beginning that her boyfriend sucked, but her other teammates didn’t. I would have liked to have gotten to know them better, but I suspect that I will in the next books. It says Derek is a bad boy in the synopsis, but he’s really not. He’s running away from some things, and he plays a lot of pranks, but he’s smart, he’s a handyman around the house, and he’s very sweet to Ashtyn, right from the beginning, even if he does fool around with some girls while she has a boyfriend. Also, he has a southern accent, and that’s fantastic.

And then Derek’s grandmother comes in, and she’s great. Which leads him to doing something very big and sweet to win Ashtyn over at the end, and that was adorable and heartwarming. I also hadn’t seen or read anything with such a big move in a long while, so that was nice. I think that, plus Derek’s general good guy-ness, made this a very good read to me. Something that I was very in the mood for as well, apparently. 

This was really good. Really sweet and cute and adorable. And I’m really looking forward to the next books in the series, whenever they get released. Elkeles is on my automatic buy list (has been for a while), and now I might actually get around to reading her first series soon.

Teaser Tuesday[69]: Wild Cards (Wild Cards, #1) by Simone Elkeles

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

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Wild Cards (Wild Cards, #1) by Simone Elkeles

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Bloomsbury (Walker Books)

Publish Date: October 1^st, 2013

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

Wishlist Thursday.

Goodreads Synopsis:

After getting kicked out of boarding school, bad boy Derek Fitzpatrick has no choice but to live with his ditzy stepmother while his military dad is deployed. Things quickly go from bad to worse when he finds out she plans to move them back to her childhood home in Illinois. Derek’s counting the days before he can be on his own, and the last thing he needs is to get involved with someone else’s family drama.

Ashtyn Parker knows one thing for certain--people you care about leave without a backward glance. A football scholarship would finally give her the chance to leave. So she pours everything into winning a state championship, until her boyfriend and star quarterback betrays them all by joining their rival team. Ashtyn needs a new game plan, but it requires trusting Derek—someone she barely knows, someone born to break the rules. Is she willing to put her heart on the line to try and win it all?

Excerpt:

“I scan the crowd and see Derek dancing with Bree. She’s got her back to him, grinding against him. Monika and Trey are dancing next to them. They’re all smiling and laughing.” (Hardback, pg. 126)

So, what are you reading right now?