Fallen Crest High by
Tijan
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
On the drama scale of 0 to 10, this gets a 27. It’s as if a soap opera, had an affair with a telenovela, and all the offspring got sent to high school. That’s what I liked best about this book.
The initial drama sucks you in, and it isn’t until you step back from it that you realize some things are missing here, like character development, plot elements (including a plot, in general), transitions between scenes and dialogue, setting, and realism and believability, which typically exist in a contemporary novel.
You have to suspend disbelief at a pro level for this one. Still, it’s an amusing experience, if you need a change of pace.
The final thing I found difficult is that the story has approximately 237 side characters, when about 15 would have been sufficient. The majority of those side characters aren’t developed past having a name and a side in the drama. Most of them aren't useful to the story, and they just get in the way and waste time.
343 Read in 2018
Pages: 375
Fallen Crest Family by
Tijan
My rating:
2 of 5 stars
Book two is the end of the line for me. All of the writing issues that were evident in book one are magnified in book two. And it’s exhausting. I love drama, but I can’t handle the poor story construction any longer.
The plot is missing, as are most plot elements. The only thing that fuels this book is drama, but it all feels like recycled drama at this point. The conflicts are all weak, which in turn equals boring, which is a shame, as this book could actually use some real conflict…not blown up, unrealistic drama, but true conflict, the kind that forces characters to make difficult choices and reveal more of who they are.
There are even more side characters in book 2 who aren’t developed at all. Example: Hey, meet Jeff. We don’t know what Jeff looks like, who he is, why he matters to the story, or even what his personality is. He just suddenly appears out of thin air, as if he has always been there. Then Jeff keeps getting his name randomly mentioned in the scenes that pretty much could go in any order, as it’s all the same thing over and over again: parent drama, sex, party time, sex, teen drama, threats of violence, sex, substance abuse, parental neglect and abuse, drama, sex, party time, repeat ad infinitum.
Also, the main characters don’t show any level of growth. They’re basically the same as they were in book one, so I couldn’t stay interested in following them through the endless cycle of repeat scenarios, ad nauseam. They have the potential to be interesting, layered individuals, but they aren’t. It would be fun to peel away those layers, but it never happens….or it happens at a snail's pace, which isn’t enough to keep me reading. Honestly, everything that happened in book one and two could easily have been condensed to fit in the first half of book one, had this been edited better and rewritten.
There are no transitions between scenes, so one second we are at a party, and then I suddenly realize we are with an entirely different group of people in another location, and I don’t even know how we got there or why that occurred. The setting and world building are almost nonexistent, which would be okay, if the story was easy to follow. It's not. You're going to get whiplash from how it just randomly jumps around as soon as the dialogue cuts off.
Plus, two of the characters basically have the same name, and since I listened on audio, it was the end of book two before I knew it was two different people. I mean, it honestly could have just been one person, as basically both Tate and Kate are just mean girls, so I didn’t lose much from the story by not realizing that Kate was a separate person. She might as well just be Tate.
If you like lots of drama and steam, and you can overlook issues with story construction,you might fare well with this. Both of my book besties really enjoyed it,which makes me the odd woman out. I tried to let it all go, but I just can’t overlook that many issues with the writing. I’ve reached the point where the more I read, the more frustrated I get by it, so I'm calling it quits here and moving on to something better.
If you are looking for an excellent YA romance series with lots of drama, that is extremely well-written, try anything by Katie McGarry. I also enjoyed I'LL MEET YOU THERE by Heather Demetrios.
Book 344 Read in 2018
Pages: 287
Years ago I
read all the Travis McGee mysteries. They all have a color in the title, so it
seemed a good year to re-read them all. 
