Okay. So I thought I was going to end up writing an absolutely HORRIBLE review on this book. It started out so cliche that I wanted to puke. Seriously. Plus the writing, on a technical level, was just bad. But, I changed my mind after a bit...Corrinne is a spoiled, overprivileged, overindulged, 15 year old Manhattanite (think Gossip Girl). She comes home from an afternoon shopping at Barney's to a "family meeting"... Guess what? High powered Dad has been laid off from his job and they are going to have to change their lifestyle! OMG! Corrinne can no longer go to her high-priced boarding school, drop thousands at a time at Barney's, or continue to ride her thoroughbred at her posh CT stable, and what's worse? She has to move in with her grandparents, to the backwoods Texas town that her mother grew up in. The town her mother hated so much that she had never even taken her children to visit their grandparents there... So guess what? You guessed it... Corrinne hates it! She just can't stomach all those cowboys and hicks and their boring country ways! Then to make matters worse, her grandmother makes her eat carbs AND get a JOB! (Gasp!) But alas, it starts to grow on her, even if she can't admit it. She makes a friend and meets a rocker boy who is a fish out of water, just like she is (but another boy likes her and he's the oh-so-cute football star who happens to be smart and funny, but not her type, so she's mean to him)...
That is when the book started to become a page-turner for me. I just had to know how this story would pan out. I have to admit that while the romantic part of it was totally predictable, I didn't actually see the ending coming. So... While the premise was cliche, with stereotypes that really annoyed me, and a good part of the story was predictable from the beginning, it turned out okay. Because I liked the story, this book did not make my "Hate List" and because I had a hard time putting it down, I gave it a 3-star rating. It was okay. I could definitely see a teenage girl loving it. In fact, this would make a great teen movie (a la Miley Cyrus in her Hannah Montana Movie)- riches to rags, a love triangle, coming of age- a definite hit!
My rating: ★ ★ ★
Grade Level: 8+ due to content. There is a good bit of glorified teen drinking. Some parents would say that this would knock it into HS+ territory, but I disagree. There aren't many 8th graders out there that aren't aware that teens drink, and that they often have fun while doing so. My nine year old knows that, for Heaven's sake. Other than the drinking thing, it's pretty clean. No sex or other "touchy" topics.
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Very nice review. The book sounds interesting. It's one I haven't heard of. There are so many good books out there and so little time to read. Thanks for letting us know about it.
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