Rate this book

Swoon At Your Own Risk (2010)

by Sydney Salter(Favorite Author)

3.61 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0152066497 (ISBN13: 9780152066499)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

HMH Books for Young Readers

review 1: Polly has sworn off boys after a year of disastrous dating, leaving a string of ex-s behind her. You might think that she would be better at this whole dating thing since her grandma is a romance advice columnist, but no. Now Polly is working for the summer at a water park where ex #3 is her supervisor. Most of her issues stem from dad's absence in their lives since the divorce as well as mom's financial struggles. There are also conflicts with best friend Jane and a crush on the hot neighborhood skateboarder.Nothing to hate but nothing to love about this one.
review 2: I thought I would like this a lot more than I did. The idea of this girl working at a Wild West themed waterpark seemed ridiculously amazing to me. Who wouldn't want to read something so od... mored? Unfortunately, I couldn't really get into this book. I found myself setting it down a lot and choosing instead to netflix some Dean Winchester. While it got a little bit better towards the last 1/4 of the book, it still never sucked me in like I'd hoped.One of my main issues was Polly. I don't want to sound mean, but I really didn't like her. She just got on my nerves the entire book. The girl is downright boy crazy and not in a cute funny way. It was like her whole life revolved around boys. She was constantly ogling every dude in sight. Polly had a long list of exes as well. Some of them I was happy for her to be away from and others I didn't blame for dumping her. How does she expect to have a real relationship with someone if she can't open up at all. I'm not saying that she should have been sobbing all over the place and gushing about her life long dreams, but she should have shared some emotion towards her boyfriends instead of making out all the time. Whenever any of the boys tried to have a serious conversation with her, she'd make a joke out of everything. Overall, it seemed like Polly had no life outside of guys. With every new boyfriend, it was like she reinvented herself to fit what the boyfriend liked. Polly was one of those girls that had no personality in a relationship and always changed her interests to that of a boy. It was just kind of sad and annoying. I must say though, I started to like her a bit more once everything fell apart. I stopped hating Polly and started disliking all the characters around her. Especially the father, I felt horrible for Polly and Grace during those scenes. My parents are divorced, so I could relate to that. At the end, there was sort of a revelation for the dad, but I didn't think it excused his behavior and I still hated him. Also, strangely, I really disliked the grandma. I thought I would like her character because she seemed interesting from the summary, but she ended getting on my nerves as well. She just was very flighty and inconsiderate.Normally, I'm all for the romance in books. Hell, I can't read a book if there isn't an ounce of romance in it, but I wasn't feeling it in this book. Xander wasn't a bad guy. In fact, he was a very nice person, but I thought he was kinda boring. He had potential to be an interesting character, but he didn't have the spark a male love interest should have. I don't mean that he had to be an asshole and jerk because there have been tons of 'nice' guys in YA that I've liked (any Sarah Dessen novel). Xander was just bleh. My biggest problem with him was his poetry, turned me off of him right away. There were little snippets of his poetry at the end of chapters and I felt like I was supposed to swoon over his way with words. Instead of seeming deep and impressive, it just made me laugh. The poetry was so pretentious like snobby art kids or the contestants on that bravo show 'Work of Art'. Also, I didn't feel that Polly and Xander fell in love. I'll admit, they did have some chemistry, but overall, it seemed rushed to me. There was this strange crying scene at the camping trip that weirded me out. Xander just burst into sobs randomly and I still have no idea what the hell he was crying about. less

Download links for: Swoon at Your Own Risk

Advertising