"The Twins on Thursday" is reserved for the Twins' joint reviews. It is a special feature of our blog that discusses books that we either both like, dislike, or have mixed feelings about. This is also the day where we post reviews for books (and ARCs/Galleys) that have been sent to us by authors/galley sites/publishing houses. And because we don't believe much in uniformity, we'll be trying to mix things up a bit by adding random stuff in relation to our review (well, mostly for books we purchased anyway).
Title: Let Him Go
Author: Kaitlyn Felt
Format Acquired: PDF
Publication Date: November 13, 2012
Publication Date: November 13, 2012
Publishing House: CreateSpace / Amazon
ISBN: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Source of Copy: Sent by author for review
Summary: Tenley Alexander is just a simple small-town girl living within the closed realms of her small world. A fresh high school graduate, Tenley tries to keep herself on her toes in the sweet anticipation of leaving her tiny town for good in order to go thrive at her dream collegiate school. However, Tenley's motivation is severely distupted when a love from her past sweeps unexpectedly into her life. With the threat of tripping and falling back into a kind of love that she doesn't want, Tenley's goals become hazy and her little world suddenly expands to be so much bigger.
Jacob Trojan's life is finally turning back to normal. Eight years have passed since his father's tragic death and three more have one by since his brother disappeared off the map. Standing on his feet for the first time in his life, Jacob is determined to do something with his life. With a possible collegiate athletic scholarship on the line and his mother and perfect girlfriend standing proudly behind him, Jacob knows he can't steer wrong. However, that all changes when he lays eyes on Tenley Alexander for the first time in two years...
Leighton Gardner's life is pretty much perfect. She's beautiful and she has also somehow held onto the hand of a beautiful boy for nearly two years. Growing up in a wealthy family as an only child, Leighton is used to getting handed anything she's ever wanted. That's why she's caught off guard when Jacob suddenlybegins to pull his fingers out of her slippery grasp. With the encouragement of her best friend, Leighton unwillingly begins to investigate the many pieces of her life...and finds out that everything she has ever known may not be as perfect as it always seemed...
Based on true events, "Let Him Go" is a story that displays both the good and the bad of small towns, close friendships, and time. Written from three different perspectives, the first book in the "Let Him Go" series will captivate the reader from the very first page until the very last letter.
Review:
As per the popular internet meme going around lately, we'd have to agree with the picture of the guy holding up the bottle and saying, "Well, that escalated quickly." Readers will be quickly thrust into the world of Jacob, Tenley, and Leighton. What can you expect from this book? Drama, drama, and more drama. Was it good drama at least? Well, to be honest, no.
The story starts with Tenley. Tenley, after seeing Jacob in a baseball game, apparently still has not gotten over her two-year crush on Jacob and ends up blasting Taylor Swift - whom we swear might as well be a character in the book as well, the way she always ends up being mentioned - in her car. It is here where she starts having these flashbacks about a particular memory with Jacob. As it turns out, Tenley is not the only one affected by the chance encounter. Jacob's concentration is so affected he can't even focus on the game. And because Jacob is apparently, still mooning over Tenley as well, he also has his own flashback. We are then introduced to Leighton, Jacob's current girlfriend of two years, who seems to notice that her boyfriend's attention is not on her either. Because he's spacing out, Leighton starts spacing out too, and has - you guessed it - a flashback as well. Caught between two girls, Jacob ends up having a hard time deciding which one should he let go of.
Let's start with the characters. We host nightly Skype sessions with each other talking about characters, dissecting them, and then putting them back together piece by piece. Did we connect with any of Felt's characters? Did we want to know what made them tick? Not particularly, nope.
We found Tenley a gullible mess. When Jacob mentioned that she was independent, we couldn't help but think the opposite. She practically had the guy on a pedestal, and couldn't think of living without him again. She was an insipid damsel-in-distress character who had no other thoughts but JacobJacobJacob, and it was really quite sad. Jacob was probably the worst male protagonist we have ever come across, and we can't understand his appeal at all. He's overly cheesy, dramatic - more than the girls, even - and has these mercurial mood shifts. He plays both girls, and often claims that he loves one more than the other, yet can't seem to let either one of them go. He makes promises he can't keep as well, and has double-standards when it comes to the girls. When he makes a mistake, he always finds a convenient scapegoat to pile the blame on. He doesn't believe in owning up to his mistakes, and that's the part that frustrates us. We get that it is hard to have lost a family figure - it's a personal subject for one of us too - but what Jacob does is throw a constant woe-is-me pity party for himself in the duration of the entire book. In the latter part of the book, he suddenly claims to be Christian, and harangues himself when he has found himself in a particularly sticky situation, like suddenly he was the town's most noble altar boy. We think that at the base of it all, Jacob is afraid to be alone, and is currently not fit for any kind of romantic relationship at all. Leighton, Jacob's girlfriend of two years, has got to be the least irritating of the trio by a tiny margin. She's snobby, conceited, and petty, but she did have some moments where she was the only one who made a little bit of sense.
Tenley's relationship with Jacob can be described as a continuation of an interrupted romance filled with cheesy lines and seemingly "swoon-worthy" material. It was all too much and too fast. Leighton's relationship with Jacob, on the other hand, was like that of an old married couple. They often fought over the pettiest things, and worse of all? Jacob would be the one to blow things out of proportion. Leighton makes a small comment and Jacob practically makes an entire play around it. It is in this relationship that we see a glimpse of a different Jacob - certainly NOT the Jacob that's with Tenley, and it makes us feel afraid that this guy could have some pretty big, and even turbulent, issues.
Speaking of issues, there were a number of things in the book that we definitely did not enjoy. The narration felt like it was taken straight out of a really cheesy soap opera, with extra cheese. I mean, really, are pretty words all it takes for a girl to believe a guy is giving her his undying devotion? Seriously? Also, let's not forget the cringe-worthy quotes that Jacob randomly tosses out. Like say that quote where he talks about being in love with two girls and then choosing the second one? How can a girl honestly take that seriously? Aside from that, the author constantly mentions Taylor Swift and while we both have nothing against her, the frequent references to the singer, along with the random song lyric stanzas are both unnecessary and irritating. Another thing we found irrelevant were the flashbacks. We get that the author included them to let readers get a feel for the characters' past relationships with each other but it didn't work and truth be had, one of us totally ignored the flashbacks and skipped them while the other had to slave through them. The flashbacks did not add anything to the story and did nothing other than take up space.
Unfortunately due to the cast of irritable characters, the cheesy soap opera-ish storyline and narration and the disturbing way everyone seemed to have cheated on each other, we honestly could not bear to give this one a single star.
Summary: Tenley Alexander is just a simple small-town girl living within the closed realms of her small world. A fresh high school graduate, Tenley tries to keep herself on her toes in the sweet anticipation of leaving her tiny town for good in order to go thrive at her dream collegiate school. However, Tenley's motivation is severely distupted when a love from her past sweeps unexpectedly into her life. With the threat of tripping and falling back into a kind of love that she doesn't want, Tenley's goals become hazy and her little world suddenly expands to be so much bigger.
Jacob Trojan's life is finally turning back to normal. Eight years have passed since his father's tragic death and three more have one by since his brother disappeared off the map. Standing on his feet for the first time in his life, Jacob is determined to do something with his life. With a possible collegiate athletic scholarship on the line and his mother and perfect girlfriend standing proudly behind him, Jacob knows he can't steer wrong. However, that all changes when he lays eyes on Tenley Alexander for the first time in two years...
Leighton Gardner's life is pretty much perfect. She's beautiful and she has also somehow held onto the hand of a beautiful boy for nearly two years. Growing up in a wealthy family as an only child, Leighton is used to getting handed anything she's ever wanted. That's why she's caught off guard when Jacob suddenlybegins to pull his fingers out of her slippery grasp. With the encouragement of her best friend, Leighton unwillingly begins to investigate the many pieces of her life...and finds out that everything she has ever known may not be as perfect as it always seemed...
Based on true events, "Let Him Go" is a story that displays both the good and the bad of small towns, close friendships, and time. Written from three different perspectives, the first book in the "Let Him Go" series will captivate the reader from the very first page until the very last letter.
Review:
As per the popular internet meme going around lately, we'd have to agree with the picture of the guy holding up the bottle and saying, "Well, that escalated quickly." Readers will be quickly thrust into the world of Jacob, Tenley, and Leighton. What can you expect from this book? Drama, drama, and more drama. Was it good drama at least? Well, to be honest, no.
The story starts with Tenley. Tenley, after seeing Jacob in a baseball game, apparently still has not gotten over her two-year crush on Jacob and ends up blasting Taylor Swift - whom we swear might as well be a character in the book as well, the way she always ends up being mentioned - in her car. It is here where she starts having these flashbacks about a particular memory with Jacob. As it turns out, Tenley is not the only one affected by the chance encounter. Jacob's concentration is so affected he can't even focus on the game. And because Jacob is apparently, still mooning over Tenley as well, he also has his own flashback. We are then introduced to Leighton, Jacob's current girlfriend of two years, who seems to notice that her boyfriend's attention is not on her either. Because he's spacing out, Leighton starts spacing out too, and has - you guessed it - a flashback as well. Caught between two girls, Jacob ends up having a hard time deciding which one should he let go of.
Let's start with the characters. We host nightly Skype sessions with each other talking about characters, dissecting them, and then putting them back together piece by piece. Did we connect with any of Felt's characters? Did we want to know what made them tick? Not particularly, nope.
We found Tenley a gullible mess. When Jacob mentioned that she was independent, we couldn't help but think the opposite. She practically had the guy on a pedestal, and couldn't think of living without him again. She was an insipid damsel-in-distress character who had no other thoughts but JacobJacobJacob, and it was really quite sad. Jacob was probably the worst male protagonist we have ever come across, and we can't understand his appeal at all. He's overly cheesy, dramatic - more than the girls, even - and has these mercurial mood shifts. He plays both girls, and often claims that he loves one more than the other, yet can't seem to let either one of them go. He makes promises he can't keep as well, and has double-standards when it comes to the girls. When he makes a mistake, he always finds a convenient scapegoat to pile the blame on. He doesn't believe in owning up to his mistakes, and that's the part that frustrates us. We get that it is hard to have lost a family figure - it's a personal subject for one of us too - but what Jacob does is throw a constant woe-is-me pity party for himself in the duration of the entire book. In the latter part of the book, he suddenly claims to be Christian, and harangues himself when he has found himself in a particularly sticky situation, like suddenly he was the town's most noble altar boy. We think that at the base of it all, Jacob is afraid to be alone, and is currently not fit for any kind of romantic relationship at all. Leighton, Jacob's girlfriend of two years, has got to be the least irritating of the trio by a tiny margin. She's snobby, conceited, and petty, but she did have some moments where she was the only one who made a little bit of sense.
Tenley's relationship with Jacob can be described as a continuation of an interrupted romance filled with cheesy lines and seemingly "swoon-worthy" material. It was all too much and too fast. Leighton's relationship with Jacob, on the other hand, was like that of an old married couple. They often fought over the pettiest things, and worse of all? Jacob would be the one to blow things out of proportion. Leighton makes a small comment and Jacob practically makes an entire play around it. It is in this relationship that we see a glimpse of a different Jacob - certainly NOT the Jacob that's with Tenley, and it makes us feel afraid that this guy could have some pretty big, and even turbulent, issues.
Speaking of issues, there were a number of things in the book that we definitely did not enjoy. The narration felt like it was taken straight out of a really cheesy soap opera, with extra cheese. I mean, really, are pretty words all it takes for a girl to believe a guy is giving her his undying devotion? Seriously? Also, let's not forget the cringe-worthy quotes that Jacob randomly tosses out. Like say that quote where he talks about being in love with two girls and then choosing the second one? How can a girl honestly take that seriously? Aside from that, the author constantly mentions Taylor Swift and while we both have nothing against her, the frequent references to the singer, along with the random song lyric stanzas are both unnecessary and irritating. Another thing we found irrelevant were the flashbacks. We get that the author included them to let readers get a feel for the characters' past relationships with each other but it didn't work and truth be had, one of us totally ignored the flashbacks and skipped them while the other had to slave through them. The flashbacks did not add anything to the story and did nothing other than take up space.
Unfortunately due to the cast of irritable characters, the cheesy soap opera-ish storyline and narration and the disturbing way everyone seemed to have cheated on each other, we honestly could not bear to give this one a single star.
Rating:
I am fascinated by this! No bars! That sounds bad. It almost makes me want to read it, just for that reason. And you guys Skype to discuss books? Talk about dedication. I don't have a twin, but I have an "Irish twin"- a sister one year apart, and I wish I could make her read with me! She'll hang up on me if I try to talk about books too much on the phone! You're lucky to have an automatic two person book club!
ReplyDeleteHaha, we hang out quite often and discuss books both off/online - quite amazing how we're not sick of each other :P Most of our friends aren't really fond of reading, so we can totally relate to not having much friends to talk about books with. Hopefully, you'll find a book buddy soon to spaz with. :) Thanks for dropping by!
DeleteBummer, I am not a drama mama.
ReplyDeleteHahahaha! :)
Delete