The Party Boy's Guide to Dating a Geek by Piper Vaughn
Ok, wow. While I had pretty much resigned myself to giving this 2 stars... towards the end, it really pushed me to drop my rating even lower. Luckily, I'm in a good mood, so I stuck with 1 1/2 stars.
The main reason why it gets such a low rating is because I couldn't connect with Ash. I could not get an inside to his thoughts, reasons. I didn't understand how any of the boring stuff that happened between him and Fee impacted him and changed his mentality. And some passages were outright ridiculous. Like the moment when Ash arrives at Fee's birthday party, spend less than 5 minutes talking (I seriously believed they exchanged only 2 sentences between them) and yet Ash was amazed at how easy it was to talk to Fee and that he was indeed a nice guy. At which point (and for the rest of the book) I had this one question playing in my head at everything Ash did, questioned or believed: Why should I take for granted everything you say in relation to Fee? I felt in no way compelled to side with Ash or empathise.
I also felt slightly cheated as both MC were different from what I expected. Fee was geeky and shy and yet had plenty of friends, wasn't afraid to get into a fight if need be and had a hot body. Ash was this charismatic tattoo artist who bottomed for anyone wishing, who had awesome and understanding parents and who turned whinny and needy after one look at Fee. The scene that tipped me towards really disliking the book was the fight scene towards the end. After being together for a couple of months and claiming to know Fee somewhat well, Ash just jumps to his own conclusions, acts like a spoiled brat then mourns his impending break-up. And all because he couldn't give his boyfriend 5 minutes to explain. Really?!
Bottom line? A very sugary and sappy story with no attachment from my side for the characters. They contradicted the pre-envisaged picture I had of them and I couldn't grasp the mentality they had. Good luck to other readers. Hope they make it inside the characters and enjoy the book more than I did.
