Wednesday, November 10, 2010

"Cruel Summer" Review

"Cruel Summer" by Alyson Noel

Synopsis:
Having recently discarded her dorky image-- and the best friend that went with it-- Colby Cavendish is looking forward to a long hot season of parties, beach BBQs, and, hopefully, more hookups with Levi Bonham, the hottest guy in school. But her world comes crashing down when her parents send her away to spend the summer in Greece with her crazy aunt Tally.
Stranded on a boring island with no malls, no cell-phone reception, and an aunt who talks to her plants, Colby worries that her new friends have forgotten all about her. But when she meets Yannis, a cute Greek local, everything changes. She experiences something deeper and more intense than a summer fling, and it forces her to see herself, and the life she left behind, in a whole new way.

Review:
Rating- *** (stars)
I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked the story overall but I didn't really like that the whole book had no chapters, just emails, letters and blog posts. Alyson Noel's writing style was really different in this book from the immortals series she is currently working on now. The story is the usual boy-meets-girl-and-falls-in-love type of story. She basically gets forcibly removed from her hometown to live on an isolated island with an aunt she barely knows, all because her parents are going through a messy divorce. The ending of the story is cute but not how I pictured it.