Title: Social Misfits

Author: Kelli Nicole

Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult

Format: Paperback

Page Count: 213

Release Date: November 13, 2017

Synopsis:

Good friends are hard to come by and even harder to keep. C.J. Taylor learned this the hard way when she discovered her best friend had been keeping a secret from her. And it’s kind of awkward. He’s in love with her. 

In this coming-of-age story of friendships, first dates, and chick flicks, this publicly accused “tease” is forced to deal with the awkward and often humorous aftermath of rejecting her best friend’s romantic confession. There’s​ ​her (former?) best friend, Presley​, ​who’s​ ​a​ ​total​ ​sweetheart​ ​of​ ​a​ ​jock​ ​but​ ​with​ ​a​ ​dorky charm​ ​that​ ​goes​ ​unnoticed​ ​by​ ​the​ ​female​ ​population,​ ​the​ ​tragically​ ​shy​, ​Cindy,​ ​who​ ​has​ ​a​ ​massive fear​ ​of​ ​boys​ ​and​ ​a​ ​secret​ ​desire​ ​to be noticed,​ ​the​ ​hopeless​ ​anti-social​, ​Hamp,​ ​who’s​ ​deceptively cute​ ​and​ ​is​ ​particularly​ ​allergic​ ​to​ ​all​ ​things​ ​school-related…And​ ​then​ ​there’s​ ​her​ ​mother’s​ ​fiance, Anthony,​ ​who​ ​thinks​ ​her​ ​only​ ​purpose​ ​in​ ​life​ ​is​ ​watching​ ​teen​ soap operas. 

But C.J. isn’t ready to give up. Faced with the hopeless reality of her now strained friendship, C.J. is determined to set things right. And she thinks she knows the perfect way get things back on track…she must find him a girlfriend.

I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. This in no way effects my overall rating of this book.

I’m very torn about this book. Overall I enjoyed it, but also… I was very annoyed. By the antics of the main character, the decisions and attitude from the side characters… I found myself more annoyed than anything else.

This is unfortunate given the fact that I was really looking forward to reading and reviewing this book. Not everything was bad, of course. I found the idea of the popular girl finding a girlfriend for her best friend she rejected interesting.

But she only wanted to do this so that her friend would stop being mad at her for rejecting him and so that he would hang out with her again like they did before he confessed his feelings to her. Selfish, much?

Also, she was constantly talking like you’d expect a girl with privilege to. She was always annoyed at people that didn’t take time from their lives for the benefit of hers. I can’t respect a character like that, even if she does realize how selfish she was by the end (which upped this read a star for me).

I felt like a lot of this book and the character’s relationships were superficial. This does make sense considering the fact that it takes place in a high school. But literally all of the characters are low-key jerks.

The only characters I found myself liking were Cindy and Presley and then Presley ended up acting like a complete jerk when C.J. rejected him. She was being as nice as possible while doing so as well. But he kept on applying force, kissing her while she’s literally screaming at him to stop. I get the entire hormonal teenage boy thing but this is not right. And it wasn’t handled very well by the author given the fact that he invaded her personal space and it took her screaming stop like three times for him to stop.

This takes me to my next problem. There was a character that I know the author was trying to make into the stereotypical popular jock that is kinda a jerk to all the girls but he still gets them all, but he truly rubbed me the wrong way. A lot of sentences made it seem like he was a rapist and I’m starting to think that he was. But the author never did anything about this.

Maybe I read this the wrong way and am blowing it out of proportion but I’m pretty sure this character was raping girls at parties and everyone just kept on ignoring it and doing nothing about it.

Despite overall enjoying the book (it was a quick and easy read and kept me engaged throughout) a few things didn’t sit well with me so I couldn’t bring myself to rate it any higher. There were a lot of interesting concepts that I liked the idea of but the execution could have used some work. A sensitivity reader might have been a good investment for the author as well.

Despite that there was also some language used that could be potentially harmful. I don’t remember what the words or phrases were exactly because I forgot to make a note of them but I told myself to mention it in the review for possible future readers.

The writing itself I found to be good but needed a bit of brushing up. I also noticed that the perspectives between characters seemed to suddenly change without prior notice. It was never properly divided by chapters or sections so we would be put into the mind of a different character for let’s say a paragraph before going back to the main character.

My Rating: 2.5 Stars

Overall this book was a quick read. I had my issues with it but if you’re looking for a contemporary set in high school and would like to support a new author I’d recommend it for you. Given that it was the author’s first book, I can definitely see her next book being better.

**i was also thinking of hosting a giveaway for this book on my twitter or instagram since the author sent me two copies. would y’all want that?

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What are some high school cliches you like and dislike? Let me know!

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