Samstag, 20. Dezember 2014

Love Bites - Rachel K. Burke

Title: Love Bites
Author: Rachel K. Burke
Rating: 3/5

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK, HarperImpulse for letting me receive a digital copy before the official release.
What do you do when you fall in love with your best friend’s boyfriend?

That is the question that twenty-six year-old Justine Sterling has been asking herself ever since the day she met David Whitman, her best friend Renee’s boyfriend. Justine is determined to ignore her growing feelings for the irresistibly charming David, until one night, when she finds herself in the bed of the one person she should stay away from.

When Justine and David’s affair ends in heartbreak, Justine is forced to repair the damaged friendship with her best friend. In doing so, she learns that right and wrong decisions aren’t always black and white, and sometimes you have to follow your heart to see where it leads.
Alright. This is kind of hard, because this book was nothing like I thought it would be. I'm not sure if that's good or bad yet, let's weight out the options.

I liked the main conflict of this novel - a girl being in love with her best friend's boyfriend. It's so clichee and tons of books like that exist already, I know, but I never get tired of reading about those. At least I don't if they're well-written and that was the case with Love Bites. The writing was great.

The reason why I may be confused about my thoughts on this book is that it was described as New Adult, and I think the author isn't a New Adult author. She's an adult author. This is a book for adults. It contains jobs and fashion and pregnancy and adult friendships and, and, and... I can't help but being reminded of Sex and The City, which I never liked, and novels by Paige Toon, who is an author I love very, very much.

I also liked the different characters. All of them had their own voice. You could always tell them apart because none of them acted and spoke the same way. That doesn't mean I could relate to all of them. For example, I liked Renee and Dylan's relationship, but I just wasn't interested in reading anything about those two. But I was really excited to read about Justine's past, and David, and then the other guy that stepped into her life (you'll know who I mean once you decide to give this book a chance).

As mentioned, I started this book with different expectations. Different isn't always bad, yeah, of course. That's not what I am saying. However, different is hard for me to deal with. I'm still unsure what to think of this book, because it had its good points, but then there were parts, job interviews for example, that I just wanted to skip because it was too adult-like and I hoped for a New Adult book. I'm complaining too much, I'm sorry.

I still think this book captured the emotion of a bad breakup perfectly as well as the part when you try to deal with the circumstances afterwards. And I think this is what makes the book special in a way, too, because I think there aren't many novels out there that really deal with situations.