What this book then became was a showdown between two beautiful people who clearly wanted to shag but decided the best kind of foreplay is that where they antagonize the hell out of each other. Then we cut to a year later when she comes back from a year studying in France, determined not to let him win this time around. It was sad, it was awful and I felt sorry for her. For the former, the book started by using a chapter to give us an example of the way Tate had been bullied for several years by a guy who used to be her best friend but turned on her.

The book didn't really deliver on either of those. I really liked the idea of the book for two reasons: 1) I wanted to see how the author handled the subject of bullying and 2) I was intrigued by the promise of a bully being turned into someone we could love. The negatives were flying at me on every page and, after a while, I couldn't ignore them. This book's description didn't sound like the others that are all virtually identical. I'm looking for the NA books which are different and actually tell a good story, even if it is a romance. Despite what you may think from my reactions to most books in the NA experiment, I don't just spend my time looking for things to bitch and moan about in these books.

I don't even remember the last time I wanted to like a book this much. I was ready to make excuses for it, try and justify the bad and pretend the good overshadowed it. I was ready to be forgiving of the small negatives. I'm going to work my way through some of the popular New Adult books and see if I can weed out the crap and hopefully find some surprising gems. I am conducting what I'm shelving as a 'New Adult (NA) Experiment'.

Penelope douglas bully series