Boyfriend from Hell

Boyfriend From Hell  by E. Van Lowe

I have to say that I am really just "meh" about this book.  I was new to a book blogger site and the author reached out to me when I signed on, letting me know about his books, his websites, etc.  I found the book, apparently the first in the Falling Angels saga, for my nook and downloaded it.  By the end of Chapter 2, I wanted to hurl my nook into the Cooper River, or whatever body of water I was parked near, reading on my lunch hour. If the words 'curly fries' appeared one more time on my screen, it was a distinct possibility. And, while I do like YA, that doesn't mean that I like all YA, in fact, I've got a huge love/hate thing going on with the whole genre.

Girl meets boy and he may or may not be perfect.  Girl's mom meets boy and he may or may not be pure evil.  Girl behaves like self-absorbed girl, and loses her friends, but makes new friend who believes her about the evil dude.  Girl is vindicated and narrowly saves the day.

Megan, the main character is barely likable. In some ways, this is because she has those typical adolescent qualities that drive adults batty. Not that anywhere near all adults grow out of them.  I'm talking about the narcissism and the whininess and the petty jealousies.  This is kid behavior, they think everything is about them and have a rough time being concerned with anything beyond the toes of their shoes.  I expect that anyone writing about normal realistic teens will include this behavior.  Megan has this in spades.  She's a goody two shoes sort, very small group of friends, mathlete, extremely close with her single mom.  None of these is in any way a bad thing. But, then she goes to the opposite extreme, gets kicked off mathletes, skips classes to get smoochy with a boy in deserted stairwells, sneaks out, follows her mom on dates, gets really jealous when her best friends pair off and winds up with a new friend, who she actually does do right by, but only after starting on a really wrong foot.

The story was okay, the writing wasn't bad, and I've definitely read a lot worse.  But, I've read a lot better.  I can't put my finger on what was missing from this book, but something was definitely missing.    But, you don't have to take my word for it, because the folks over at goodreads just love it.  

Now, if I haven't totally scared you off, you can see for yourself if the story appeals to you with this book trailer, posted by the author himself.  I couldn't get blogger to recognize the video, but you can check it out on You Tube.