Author: Melissa C. Walker
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: May 22nd 2012
From Goodreads:
Sophomore year broke Clementine Williams' heart. She fell for her best friend;s boyfriend and long story short: he's excused, but Clem is vilified and she heads into summer with zero social life.
Enter her parents' plan to spend the summer on their sailboat. Normally the idea of being stuck on a tiny boat with her parents and little sister would make Clem break out in hives, but floating away sounds pretty good right now.
Then she meets James at one of their first stops along the river. He and his dad are sailing for the summer and he's just the distraction Clem needs. Can he break down Clem's walls and heal her broken heart?
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I really had a hard time getting into Unbreak My Heart, nothing felt new. Clementine is a regular girl, it was nice to have a girl I'm sure many could relate to. Everything Clem is going through is nothing outlandish or too much, it's ordinary "teenage" problems. I thought it was a great idea to set this on a sailboat trip because we get many interactions between Clem and her family. Parents don't usually play a huge part in YA unless they are dying, died or abusive.
I did have to keep pushing to continue reading, not because it seriously sucked but because I felt like I have read this before. The whole cheating with your best friends' boyfriend has been done before, I really feel that the characters, plot and secondary characters should be outstanding so that it can stand out. Unbreak My Heart just wasn't outstanding to me. I wasn't too thrilled with the love interest James. He wasn't really all that interesting and for me it dulled the relationship as well as the James/Clem moments. The vilifying of Clem is a little over done, seriously you'd think she was having a baby with this guy. We find out what happened between Clem and her best friend boyfriends through flashbacks as Clem is thinking about it.
Unbreak My Heart doesn't really stand out, I'm pretty sure I won't even remember much about it a couple of months later, not to say you won't enjoy it while reading it, it's just not memorable.
Aww, so the book had nothing new to offer :( that's sad because I think this type of story - while certainly abundant of late -has potential to be good, but, as you said, the secondary characters have to be good too and the new love interest swoony.
ReplyDeleteThat's too bad :(
I guess every once in a while you come across a book like that, oh well. :-/
ReplyDelete