Early Unraveling of The Art of Lainey by Paula Stokes

Title: The Art of Lainey

Series: N/A

Author: Paula Stokes
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publication Date: May 20, 2014

Soccer star Lainey Mitchell is gearing up to spend an epic summer with her amazing boyfriend, Jason, when he suddenly breaks up with her—no reasons, no warning, and in public no less! Lainey is more than crushed, but with help from her friend Bianca, she resolves to do whatever it takes to get Jason back.

And that’s when the girls stumble across a copy of The Art of War. With just one glance, they're sure they can use the book to lure Jason back into Lainey’s arms. So Lainey channels her inner warlord, recruiting spies to gather intel and persuading her coworker Micah to pose as her new boyfriend to make Jason jealous. After a few "dates", it looks like her plan is going to work! But now her relationship with Micah is starting to feel like more than just a game.

What's a girl to do when what she wants is totally different from what she needs? How do you figure out the person you're meant to be with, if you're still figuring out the person you're meant to be?

  

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My Thoughts

A copy was provided through Edelweiss and HaperCollins in exchange for an honest review

This is a hard book to review mostly because it brings nothing new to the table, which is understandable. I am not expecting to be blown away by it or anything but this also didn't have that very important factor of awesome characters/dialogue.

When your plot isn't anything new, you have to excel at something else. The writing itself, the characters, the dialogue, etc. Unfortunately this book didn't excel at anything. That's not a bad thing. The book isn't unreadable or anything and it's NOT a bad book, but it's exactly a good one either. It just is. It's nice, it's okay, nothing more.

Someone mentioned the book is too long and I agree, for these types of books making it almost 400 pages long it's too much. I like my light and fluffy at a reasonable page number. I also had an issue with Lainey. Again, she isn't a horrible character but I found myself not liking her altogether, which did not help the reading experience at all.

The romance was cute, but it took too long to get there. In my opinion it would have been much better if Lainey had realized her feelings for Micah much sooner. It dragged.

It was still a cute read and enjoyable enough, just nothing special.

So...

Would I Recommend it?

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