Taylor Caldwell can’t believe it when campus housing assigns Hunter Zaccadelli to be her new college roommate. He’s an arrogant, guitar playing, tattooed hottie, who rubs her up exactly the wrong way. They make a bet: if she can convince him she truly loves or hates him, he’ll leave the apartment. The problem is, the more time they spend together, the less she hates him.
I’m giving this book a 3.5 rating.
I’ve read some great New Adult titles lately, unfortunately the romance portion of this novel disappointed me.
WRITING AND CHARACTERS
I was a fan of the distinctive side characters in this novel and Taylor’s p.o.v narration was fun (although her character was quite immature). Her roommates were a riot and I really enjoyed reading the scenes with them in; I guess the best part of this novel for me was the humour – despite the fact that the plot was designed to offer up quite the emotional roller coaster, it was the funny lines that kept me turning the pages. Both Taylor and Hunter were given secretive, dark back stories which helped keep a sense of suspense and intrigue throughout as well. Hunter’s characterisation was inconsistent though, it was like the author had just decided to chuck ‘sexy’ attributes at him whenever they occurred to her during the writing process. I also enjoyed the university setting and the dormitory atmosphere, but I was a little confused about all the different modules Taylor was taking (French, History etc), when her major was Women’s Studies.
I wish somebody would re-edit this book and properly format the dialogue in it however. As it stands there are numerous incidents when dialogue quotes are closed, a new paragraph begins with new open quotation marks, and yet it’s the same character speaking! This was SO confusing!
THE ROMANCE
The author had 433 pages to convince me that Taylor and Hunter were a good fit, but she failed: love and domestic violence are pretty much OPPOSITES, so when Hunter tells Taylor towards the end of the novel “I’ll be your punching bag” and literally means it THIS IS NOT ROMANTIC, it’s sick and twisted and left me feeling dirty (but not in a good way!).
There was some great banter between the pair, but often difficult conversations were circumnavigated by Hunter singing some Top 40 song on his guitar – not an adequate substitute for real dialogue – and at the start of the novel Taylor swings straight from disliking Hunter’s hound dog nature to fancying the pants off of him, so I found the emotional progression all a bit choppy and confusing. And don’t get me started on their nonsensical bet, the terms of which come out of nowhere….
Side note: I found the ‘too cute’ overuse of their surnames when addressing each other a bit gag worthy, but that’s a personal thing I guess.
Book Blather 