Review: Crushing on the Enemy by Sarah Adams
Crushing on the Enemy by Sarah Adams
(Amazon): Alyssa is a cheerleader for her high school. As cheer captain, she's the epitome of school spirit. That is, until the boy that she has liked forever breaks her heart in front of everyone at a football game. Jake is a football player on the rival team. After a few chance circumstances, Alyssa and Jake find themselves to be more similar than different. But Jake's father wants him to focus on his football career, and football only.
Review:
(As always, if interested in a short and sweet summary skip the end "Ratings" section where I break down pros and cons)
Had this book had a little more re-working, I think it could have been a lot better! For the good points, it has a decent plot and doesn't digress. The characters' trials and tribulations are laid our and believable. It depicts a fairly normal teenage life with the worries of parental approval, starting college, and figuring out what one wants to do in life. Another good thing - it doesn't have a cliffhanger ending. It simply tells a cute story of a good guy and an honest girl falling for each other even when their peers turn on them because of it.
However, throughout Crushing on the Enemy, you could tell that the author was trying to find a foothold with her characters. Unfortunately, the characters were wanting in substance and likability. This is a teen-based book that revolves around Alyssa and Jake in their senior year of High School - but an older reader can still enjoy the book as long as the dialog is good and actions make sense. And that is exactly where Crushing on the Enemy fell flat.
Starting with dialog, a lot of it was filler; "Yeah", "Okay", "Sure", etc. Because of that it was really hard to connect with the characters. Did Alyssa's "Okay" mean she was truly okay or was she trying to hide her disappointment? There was no depth to the dialog and it was about impossible to tell.
My next issue, which is more of a personal thing, was the description of sports. I am a HUGE sports fan. While I recognize that a lot of the population doesn't care about sport technicalities - I do! And I find it especially important if you are going to be writing a book that sports becomes a focus in. For this reason I have a couple of go-to advice options for writers.
1.) skip over the game sequences - a fade to black and then jump back in post-game party
OR
2.) give a simple touchdown, field goal, free throw, base hit, ect. and then STOP. Don't try to create the scene for us. Action sequences are hard to write (and be understandable) as it is. Don't make it any more difficult than it has to be.
In one of the scenes, I believe what started out as a "quarterback sneak" actually turned the quarterback into a center and a receiver - in the same play - and then concluded with a tie game after one overtime...while in playoff season...Doesn't make sense! And while a majority of readers probably either skipped over that part or didn't realize it was wrong, there are those of us that DID notice and drove us near insane.
I also found the relationship pacing to be off. People (moms/dads/stepparents/friends/boyfriends/girlfriends) hated each other in one paragraph and were kissing/holding hands/best friends/frienemies/enemies in the next paragraph! Talk about whiplash.
The ebook version also has obvious edit lines in it which became extremely distracting. Many times "was" was edited to "were", or "has" to "have" - and I found myself having internal debates on whether or not the edit was correct!
If you are going try this book - look for an edited version after 6/1/13 (when this particular eBook was purchased).
Ratings:
Character love connection: Typical teen-aged style
Character development: *** (good back stories, but failed to portray real emotion)
Writing Quality: *** (errors)
Plot progression: **+ (lack of continuity)
My rating:
Amazon: 3.9
GoodReads: 3.0
(Amazon): Alyssa is a cheerleader for her high school. As cheer captain, she's the epitome of school spirit. That is, until the boy that she has liked forever breaks her heart in front of everyone at a football game. Jake is a football player on the rival team. After a few chance circumstances, Alyssa and Jake find themselves to be more similar than different. But Jake's father wants him to focus on his football career, and football only. Review:
(As always, if interested in a short and sweet summary skip the end "Ratings" section where I break down pros and cons)
Had this book had a little more re-working, I think it could have been a lot better! For the good points, it has a decent plot and doesn't digress. The characters' trials and tribulations are laid our and believable. It depicts a fairly normal teenage life with the worries of parental approval, starting college, and figuring out what one wants to do in life. Another good thing - it doesn't have a cliffhanger ending. It simply tells a cute story of a good guy and an honest girl falling for each other even when their peers turn on them because of it.
However, throughout Crushing on the Enemy, you could tell that the author was trying to find a foothold with her characters. Unfortunately, the characters were wanting in substance and likability. This is a teen-based book that revolves around Alyssa and Jake in their senior year of High School - but an older reader can still enjoy the book as long as the dialog is good and actions make sense. And that is exactly where Crushing on the Enemy fell flat.
Starting with dialog, a lot of it was filler; "Yeah", "Okay", "Sure", etc. Because of that it was really hard to connect with the characters. Did Alyssa's "Okay" mean she was truly okay or was she trying to hide her disappointment? There was no depth to the dialog and it was about impossible to tell.
My next issue, which is more of a personal thing, was the description of sports. I am a HUGE sports fan. While I recognize that a lot of the population doesn't care about sport technicalities - I do! And I find it especially important if you are going to be writing a book that sports becomes a focus in. For this reason I have a couple of go-to advice options for writers.
1.) skip over the game sequences - a fade to black and then jump back in post-game party
OR
2.) give a simple touchdown, field goal, free throw, base hit, ect. and then STOP. Don't try to create the scene for us. Action sequences are hard to write (and be understandable) as it is. Don't make it any more difficult than it has to be.
In one of the scenes, I believe what started out as a "quarterback sneak" actually turned the quarterback into a center and a receiver - in the same play - and then concluded with a tie game after one overtime...while in playoff season...Doesn't make sense! And while a majority of readers probably either skipped over that part or didn't realize it was wrong, there are those of us that DID notice and drove us near insane.
I also found the relationship pacing to be off. People (moms/dads/stepparents/friends/boyfriends/girlfriends) hated each other in one paragraph and were kissing/holding hands/best friends/frienemies/enemies in the next paragraph! Talk about whiplash.
The ebook version also has obvious edit lines in it which became extremely distracting. Many times "was" was edited to "were", or "has" to "have" - and I found myself having internal debates on whether or not the edit was correct!
If you are going try this book - look for an edited version after 6/1/13 (when this particular eBook was purchased).
Ratings:
Character love connection: Typical teen-aged style
Character development: *** (good back stories, but failed to portray real emotion)
Writing Quality: *** (errors)
Plot progression: **+ (lack of continuity)
My rating:
Amazon: 3.9
GoodReads: 3.0
I kinda like the premise, but it sounds like this one wasn't as great as it could've been. I dislike when authors go in to too much detail about sports. It has to be understandable and on the page it isn't always easy to follow, especially if someone isn't familiar with the sport. The whiplash and editing errors sound annoying, too.
ReplyDeleteThis was one of those books that I really did try to love. I have a soft spot for high school romeo and Juliette type stories, especially when there's a sports theme (though minor). It was just a little too clunky. I really do hope there's an edited version that comes out because I might be willing to re-read it just for that.
ReplyDelete