Initial Reaction After Completion
I am really confused with the book and how to go forward with the review. I don't know whether to be positive or negative about it. I'm torn between the cynical and romantic side. So, I'll dish out the story in two perspective and let you decide.
The Good Part The Hopeless-Romantic PerspectiveGirl meets boy. There is instant attraction. The boy is a tragic hero with a flawed character but a huge heart. The girl senses the loneliness as well as the goodness, which is sheltered beneath a tough veneer, in him and gives their relationship a chance. Because she believes in saving the world, one lost soul at a time. She doesn't let him go inspite of his umpteenth number of warnings that he's cancer and she would be better off without him.
Their relationship progresses steadily inspite of numerous hiatuses owing to their individual scarred pasts and substantial baggage they brought to their relationship.
But, true love survives all odds
Nothing can possibly drive a stake in their relationship.
Even after the fallouts, the bickering, the heartache, they find their way back to one another.
The boy meets his true love and promises to mend his ways because she makes him want to be a better person, the one a girl like her deserves.The book encapsulates a love story. A messed-up, dysfunctional love story, but one nonetheless.
How if given the benefit of doubt, people change.
How relentless, scathing rumors and harsh gossip ruins life.
How old festering wounds can be healed with pure, unconditional love. So, this was the good part. The hopeful part. It exudes hope and love and believes, at the end, if one holds on, things do change out to for the best.
You just have to hang in there and go through it all.
Because at the end, the whole messy pieces scattered around your life come together to form a breath-taking picture that makes complete sense and makes it worth it all.
Okay.
Argh!
So much cheese, I'm gagging
If that part made you swoon and all, go ahead and read the book. Because it is all that and more. So, for the hopeless romantics and ever-optimists, the book's for you.
Now, coming to the second part.
The Bad Part The Cynical PerspectiveThis is just the plain old bad-boy meets girl shit. This whole thing is disturbing. So fucking disturbing.
Girl meets boy. Sparks fly. Sexual tension abounds. The next day, hot and heavy makeout session. That very night, boy's dickhead of 'cousins' threaten girl's life because she flipped them off. They gag her, abuse her, douse her in gasoline and light her hair on fire. Then, of course, her
knight-in-shining-armor arrives and beat the shit outta them, when the police arrives and locks them all up.
Now, wasn't that ATTEMPTED MURDER? It's a s plain as day and the effect it has no people: Nada. Nothing. No one gives a damn. Not the parents or the police. And the victim, you wonder? She just gives the incident a thought because she no longer has long hair that got burned in the fire.
Are you fucking kidding me?

After this incident, maybe 5 weeks later they meet again at the high school. Yep, the same
beat-the-shit-out-of-felon-who's-been-arrested-more-times-than-he-can-count. And instead of running the hell away from him, she demands to know why he didn't contact her before.
You may call me selfish here. But I wouldn't lounge around a felon making my love story work. I would run like hell.
Anyway, the story progresses and the girl goes into a relationship with a guy, who, for all she knows, is a big time criminal. She half-heartedly asks questions and he evades. Again. And again. That is all that happens for 40% of the book.
The point being, how can girls be so fucking stupid and dumb? Don't you have any sense of self-preservation at all?
I mean, for heaven's sake, the guy snatches the microphone from the principal of the school during a morning assembly to threaten and warn everyone to treat Lucy(that's the girl's name) right. And if not, he'd break their legs. Is this normal? Does this really happens at high schools? And oh, to get everyone's' attention he says: Shut up, you sons of bitch. In front of the entire school school faculty and the principal.

Now, pray someone tell me is this really acceptable, because if I pulled that stint at my school, I'l be kicked out before I can blink an eye.
And the best part: Everyone listens to him. That just shows what a serious threat and bully he is. And Lucy finds him hot.
Anyway, the story progresses which merely consists of Lucy finding out about Jude's(The Boy) past crimes and all, breaking up with him and getting back together. And forgiving his bipolar
hot-and-cold syndrome and condoning his behaviour which mainly boils down to him bashing and threatening almost everyone unashamedly.
So, that was the bad, cynical part.
Lucy Larson aka The GirlYes, she deserves her own separate rantShe is bitchy, rude and a typical dumb high-schooler. Most of why I didn't like this book is because of this one single girl.
Her priorities are absolutely messed up. It was really ridiculous. She doesn't questions her felon boyfriend's criminal motives and trusts him wholeheartedly. But when she sees him hugging another girl and eavesdrops on their conversation, BAM! shoots the whole trust thing down to hell and dumps him the next day.

God, would you just stop? Can't you just wait a minute, talk it out and sort through your differences instead of making us sit through 10 more pages of unnecessary emotional drama and heartache?
Why don't people just communicate?
At one point, after their
oh-so-heartbreaking breakup, she meets him again and he accuses her of not trusting him enough. He is hurting and sad. And she fucking knows that, and still lets him walk away. And, right at this moment, she is thinking, This is the biggest regret of her life, letting him go away.
Are you fucking retarded? If you know it's a mistake and you will are regretting it, then why don't you stop him? Has he, like, run a 11029 miles that you can't call him back?
And then, she goes into a relationship with another guy whom she didn't initially trust or even like. Then, why oh why, do you agree to be his girlfriend? Because you are amazingly dumb Because she is full of milk of human kindness and decides to give him a chance. Six months later when they break up, she can't find one good quality about him. Not one. What? What the fuck were you doing for six-fucking-months? Were you dating him with your ears and eyes closed? Or you were just dropped on your head too many times?
This just sums up my feeling toward her:


So, that's about it. That is the story.
Now, whether you like it or hate it, it depends on the fact whether you can accept the love story for what it is or your cynicism breaks through and reduces the whole mushy affair into an infuriating, eye-rolling episode.Since, I am a cynic by heart, I couldn't get past the stupidness to really appreciate the love story. It was too unbelievable and ridiculous.
So, try it out if a bad-boy-perfect-girl story is your thing.