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Out Of Reach (2012)

by Carrie Arcos(Favorite Author)

3.59 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1442440538 (ISBN13: 9781442440531)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Simon Pulse

review 1: This is going to be a pretty short review. There was a lot about this book that I liked. The characters were complex and had good chemistry. I loved the complex family situation in Rachel's family. I really enjoy reading about complex family relationships, especially in YA novels. Where I felt the book was lacking was that Rachel's character felt rather juvenile to me. Maturity-wise, to me, she seemed like she was a freshman who could drive rather than a senior. But other than that, I enjoyed this book.
review 2: The plot of this story had promise. A girl who’s older brother is a meth addict has run away from home so she takes a road trip with his good looking friend in order to find him. However, the story just fell completely flat. Why? Well for starters th... moree author dumps exposition… just constantly. There’s nothing wrong with exposition, but there should be a whole lot more actual story! Some of the backstory was cute like when Rachel remembers the time she hurt her ankle, and her brother carried her home. This served a purpose. It reinforced my emotional investment in a relationship that was really the corner stone of the book. However, what I didn’t need was scene after scene of drama with her jerk of ex-boyfriend who doesn’t actually appear in the story apart from flashbacks, and a lecture her history teacher gave about the meth use of WWII soldiers. Even the scene where she calls Tyler and asks him to make the trip with her is told in exposition after a time jump in the first chapter. This choice makes no sense to me at all. How easy would it be to just include the conversation?The protagonist was bland at best. Just your token run of the mill contemporary YA female lead with no distinctive characteristics whatsoever aside from one little detail- she’s kind of a terrible person. Why do I say this? Because this is what she had to say about her best friend’s sexual assault: “Jenn got herself date-raped at some guy’s house last year when she was plastered.”Nothing frosts my cupcakes worse than victim blaming so for this sentence to be published in a book targeted at teenage girls (who very well may have suffered sexual assault) in this day and age makes me really sad, and shows me that we still have a lot more work to do as a society.(Spoilers) The ending… was a non-ending. There is very little in the way of resolution it just kind of stops. Even the romance B story line comes to a non-satisfactory finish, as Rachel isn’t ready to commit after the awful heartbreak she suffered from the infidelity of the boy she lost her virginity to (normally I’d feel bad, but I must of doled out all my sympathy to the girl who “got herself date raped”).Also, on a much more trivial note- what’s up with the cover? The outfit does look like something a teenager would wear, but when you closer at the woman she looks about thirty-five years old. There’s nothing wrong with this just…what does it have to do with the book?Anyway the writing style wasn’t horrible, and there were some decent parts (particularly the scene in the church) so my rating is four out of ten. But, if you haven’t read it yet, I recommend skipping it. I wish I had. less

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