Series: My Life With The Walter Boys Book One
Author: Ali Novak
Publication Date: March 1, 2014
Jackie Howard does not like surprises. Chaos is the enemy! The best way to get her successful, busy parents to notice her is to be perfect. The perfect look, the perfect grades—the perfect daughter. And then...
Surprise #1
Jackie's family dies in a freak car accident.
Surprise #2
Jackie has to move cross-country to live with the Walters—her new guardians.
Surprise #3
The Walters have twelve sons.
(Well, eleven, but Parker acts like a boy anyway)
Jackie is now surrounded by the enemy. Loud, dirty, annoying boys—who have no concept of personal space. Okay, several of the oldest guys are flat-out gorgeous. But still annoying. She's not stuck-up or boring—no matter what they say. But proving it is another matter. How can she fit in and move on when she needs to keep her parents' memory alive by livig up to the promise of perfect?
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My Thoughts
I was looking for something fluffy and silly to entertain me for a few hours and it did achieve this, but at the same time I felt dissatisfied with the romance. In my opinion it wasn't even truly a romance and I guess that was my problem. The book centers around Jackie who moves in with the Walter Boys and of course they are all gorgeous and she ends up in a love triangle with 2 of them, Cole and Alex.
I wasn't even bothered by the love triangle mostly because the romance sucked so bad I felt that the love triangle was moot. I hated how both boys acted and Jackie wasn't any better either. Alex was using their friendship-turned-relationship to mess with Cole and Mary, Alex's ex, who by the way was a complete bitch to Jackie so why would Alex even bother with her anymore, I don't know. Cole was the man-slut of the group who was really just dealing with some personal issues of his own, but in the mean time he was a tad bipolar about the whole thing. On one hand he was always there for Jackie when she was feeling down about her family and he always tried to cheer her back up. My problem was that most of his methods of cheering her up would utterly backfire. I truly think he didn't mean to hurt her, but the man was completely oblivious and he would end up either making it worse or using it as a way to get back at Alex.
As I said Jackie wasn't any better than Cole or Alex's antics. She was using Alex right back. Using him so she could avoid Cole and not have to face her feelings for him, because how could she fall for the man-slut, what would that make her? Just like every other girl who had a crush on him, but she was the perfect little girl, with the perfect grades, and the perfect clothes (I mean she wears PENCIL SKIRTS to school for god's sake, who does that?! Cole got her to wear jeans once, and she said she didn't want to look like a slob!!), it would be beneath her to fall for him as well. Whatever. As you can tell, I wasn't exactly on board with Jackie either.
Asides from the atrocious romance, I adored the interactions in the family. It was such a HUGE family, and Novak captured that chaotic but lovable mood perfectly. Novak may have not been able to pull off the romance like I wanted but she wrote excellent characters. I may have not liked all of them, but they felt real, solid. I adored the twins! Zack and Benny. They were just so cute and rambunctious little boys. That closet scene between Cole, Jackie, and Benny was priceless xD
I went in expecting a cute, light and fluffy romance, and in this aspect it didn't deliver, but I got my dose of cute and fluffy from the interactions of the family, so at least I did get what I was looking for in the end.
So...
Would I Recommend it?
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Other books in the My Life With The Walter Boys series:
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eww, bummer. I was having HIGH hopes for this one... but love triangles and me, dont go.
ReplyDeleteYeah the highlight for me was really the family. The three main characters were meh, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteYeah, usually I steer clear from love triangles but since this one was supposed to be good I was hoping the love triangle wouldn't be too bad? But, yeah, didn't go very well anyway LOL.
ReplyDeleteDarn!!! This is the first review I've read for this book and :( When I read the synopsis for this about a week ago, I thought it sounded really different and cute. But I am SO sick of the man-slut always being the desirable guy in YA books. It is getting so annoying!!! Plus I have already read a love triangle that featured brothers and I wanted to stab my eyes out while reading it, so I'm glad to know to skip this one!! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteLol, no problem! Happy to make your TBR pile shorter ;)
ReplyDeleteSheesh! That romance doesn't seem to make up for the family interactions. I've never heard of this one and it sunded good... but Jackie and her love interests seem like they were a pain. It's a fun concept and maybe I'll try it out. Maybe I won't. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! Yeah, the romance totally sucked. I never rooted for either of the love interests. Whenever I was getting behind one of them, they did something stupid and it was back to 0 till it was obvious it just wasn't going to happen.
ReplyDelete