Beverly Scudamore

I recieved a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Pure Fake by Beverly Scudamore

Published by: James Lorimer & Company on March 3, 2014

Genre: Young Adult

Length: 136 pages in eARC format

Source: NetGalley

Rating: 5 stars!

Description:

Gina is the kind of girl who works hard to keep up her appearance -- not just her hair and makeup, but going so far as breast-enhancement surgery and regular diet pills. When tall, athletic, good-looking Colter wants to be her boyfriend, Gina jumps at the chance. She thinks they'll be the perfect couple and ignores the warning signs that things aren't right with him. That includes rumours that his past girlfriend has a restraining order against him. But when Colter’s actions put Gina in physical danger she is finally forced to wake up to what Colter is really like.

My Thoughts:

Thank you netgalley for letting me read this book! OMG was it good. Well… it took 63% the way through the book before it really starting getting good. To be honest, I hated it at first. Gina was this winey, stuck up snob who I couldn’t stand, until crap it the fan.

Gina was dating a boy and Colter was dating a girl, wouldn’t you know it their boyfriend and girlfriends cheated on both of them with each other. As fate would have it Colter and Gina get together once Colter’s ex girlfriend moves away, but not after she spreads nasty rumors about Colter that he tried to rape her and beat her up to the point that she needed to file a restraining order. Gina never believe these rumors and didn’t not know why everyone was making a big deal about it since Colter is the sweetest guy she has ever met.

UNTIL the ex-girlfriend shows back up in town and Colter’s true colors come out…….

This is what you get when you make fun of girls who get abused by their boyfriends and you don’t believe them. It is very sad to read about girlfriends who get beat up by their boyfriends and are too afraid to report it, or think that I will never happened again, especially teenagers. Really all high school girls should read this book and get a good reality check on what is going… (lisätietoja)

NOTE: I received the ARC through Netgalley.

It's tough to review a book that seemed so unremarkable that I forgot what it was about the day after I read it. And it's been about a month since... I think you get my meaning. I had to read the blurb and several reviews, just so I could refresh my otherwise pretty good memory. It worked. Sort of.

Now that I'm better prepared, I can give my two cents on this story. First though, I'd like to say that I've read several books on the topic of violence and abuse in the past months, so I have to say that Love Hurts pales in comparison. A lot. Here's why:

- the title is all wrong; Love Hurts implies that there is love in the first place. Well, there never was anything beyond attraction which quickly transformed into fear.

- the writing style was unpolished.

- there were scenes/dialogues that sounded quite unrealistic.

- the girl, Melody was way too gullible. She was supposed to be smart, but it seems that in books, the smart girls always ALWAYS lack common sense and do the stupidest things ever. Like Melody here - after her best friend Dustin hooked up with someone else, she threw herself in the arms of the first guy who looked her way. She didn't even try to get to know him better before she started dating him. Sure, she did a little fb background check, but even though the results startled her, she didn't get suspicious. Later on, when she put two and two together, she just went with the flow, being afraid that Colter would somehow hurt her. Well, duh. He already did, isolating her from her friends, her sport team and social life.

- Colter was badly painted as a psychotic guy. I think that his character was made to fit the crimes, and not the other way around (which would've been the more accurate approach).

I don't really understand one thing, and it's common for all Teen books. Why do teens NEVER share their problems with their parents or with adults who are capable of helping? After all, that's what parents and such are there for - guidance, help, protection, etc. It's their job to take care of children of any ages, so why are they always absent or not caring? Surely, the statistics aren't that dire, are they?… (lisätietoja)

Love Hurts is a quick but weighty story. Ultimately I wish it were longer, and the characters and the events would have been more fleshed out.
I liked Mel, the main character, she was smart and a typical ya narrator. Though the writing felt off at times, like it was more of an essay or something rather than a flowing narrative of events like I am used to. It just brought me out some of the language that seemed too adult or formal. Overall though, I liked her voice and her story.
I am not sure if the point was that Mel realized there were issues with Colter earlier and tried to get herself out before the typical time that it happens in books with abusive or negative relationships, or that the crescendo just wasn't as fleshed out as it could have been. I did like the clues and "mystery" surrounding Jillian, his previous girlfriend though it made it easy for me to spot what the eventual outcome would be.
The secondary characters were interesting. I liked that it had diversity with being not from the USA, and with Dustin being on the reserve. The chemistry and build up between Mel and Dustin was actually one of my favorite parts to the story and I never really fell for Colter, which I think is usually an element present in abuse stories, because then we see what the narrator sees in him, and why it can be harder to give them up, which is how it goes in real life lots of time though.
But I really appreciated the courage that Mel had, and that she didn't isolate. Although she hid some of her doubts and questions about Colter, she also shared a lot more than most do, and that is important model for girls and women to see and hope that they could do and stand up for themselves in a negative relationship.
I also wished for more with the ending. Sometimes I think that open endings are perfect, but it just didn't quite do it for me with this one.

Bottom Line: Important topic with good narrator but needed more to the story.… (lisätietoja)