Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles and all sort of things

Oh I missed being here, hopefully I will start post regularly again  although nothing is quite settled right now I’m my life, I rent an apartment in Milan and one in Dublin, my husband is currently in London, I have a new manager and my team will probably undergo a re-organization (again!), and I will  soon have very BIG NEWS…I am so looking forward to december, this year I simply CANNOT WAIT but as my mum says “Patience is ‘the’ virtue of the strong ones” (italian idiom “la pazienza è la virtù dei forti“).

So here it’s the thing about Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles, I was hoping for distraction but all I got is a mild sense of annoyance, Carlos got on my nerves due to his self absorbed personality and poor listening skills, I couldn’t get into him and this is a big issue because this is a romance so the main male character is the focal point of everything.

This is not entirely Elkeles’s fault, it’s clearly one of those situations in which I read a good book at the wrong moment, lately I’ve been noticing that people always say “I am here if you need to talk” but are they really there? Don’t they just pretend for a few minutes so that they can then have their payback time which might take hours if I am the one listening on the other side of the coffee table.

Ok I am rambling… back to Carlos and Kiara all I can say is that attraction might have been in the air (not as overwhelming as in Perfect Chemistry) but love surely was missing and if the epilogue didn’t bother me too much in PC, here I found myself rolling my eyes and thinking “not again“.

I am quoting the super-quotable Carla:

“because we all know there is a BIG difference between love and lust and I just never felt like they crossed that particular line, I felt like I was told they did”

Precisely!

The opposites-attract routine never fails me but this time Kiara was a little too nice and understanding, I would have appreciated some  attitude.

Plus the whole sub-plot regarding gangs’ dynamics wasn’t engaging , it felt a bit like something that Elkeles had to throw in there somehow without too much conviction.

Other reviews:

The Crooked Shelf

Chachic’s Book Nook

Angieville

The YA YA YAs

My grade: 3/5

Em

Waiting on Wednesday: Return to Paraside by Simone Elkeles

Waiting on Wednesday is an  idea from Jill at Breaking The Spine.

My pick today is Return To Paradise by Simone Elkeles

Publisher:  Flux (September 1, 2010)

I really don’t like the cover (and I hope it will change):

From Amazon:

Maggie and Caleb just went through the worst year of their lives. Hit by a car and starting life over with a limp, Maggie never thought she would forgive Caleb. But she did-and fell in love. What they shared was real. But Caleb wanted to be free from the past-and a terrible secret: he wasn’t the one who hit Maggie. So he left Paradise-and Maggie-forever.When Maggie and Caleb run into each other in a different town, they can’t deny their true feelings. Will Maggie let Caleb get away again? Or will Caleb face the truth and return to Paradise?

This is the sequel to Leaving Paradise, I love contemporary romantic YA books and  Simone Elkeles is brilliant, she creates characters that become alive in the story.

I have high expectations for this one.

Em