Sarah has had a crush on Ryan for years. He's easy to talk to, supersmart, and totally gets her. Lately it even seems like he's paying extra attention to her. Everything would be perfect except for two things: Ryan is Brianna's boyfriend, and Brianna is Sarah's best friend.
Sarah forces herself to avoid Ryan and tries to convince herself not to like him. She feels so guilty for wanting him, and the last thing she wants is to hurt her best friend. But when she's thrown together with Ryan one night, something happens. It's wonderful...and awful.
Sarah is torn apart by guilt, but what she feels is nothing short of addiction, and she can't stop herself from wanting more...
Details: The Unwritten Rule by Elizabeth Scott, 224 pages, 3.68 stars on Goodreads
My Thoughts: I thought this was going to be one of those light-hearted, beach-type reads. Yes, I've never read a book by Elizabeth Scott before. And yes, I quickly realized that nope, this is very, very far from one of those light-hearted, beach-type reads. The tone was dark and at points, I could really feel Sarah's intense longing, love, and lust for Ryan.
But most of the time, I kept feeling that the dark tone wasn't entirely appropriate for the story. I've read other reviews of this book and haven't come across any that agreed with this, but it was almost like parts were melodramatic. The other thing I didn't like was how simple this book was. There wasn't much complexity - the whole book was basically Sarah loving Ryan, and Ryan loving Sarah, but Brianna also loves Ryan, and Brianna is mean to Sarah, and Brianna's parents are stupid and cruel, etc.
The characters weren't very complex, either. Sarah let herself get walked over by Brianna over and over throughout the book, and Brianna was the typical mean rich girl with awful parents. I didn't feel like the book went very in depth with Ryan because I never quite understood why Sarah liked him so much. Yes, he's cute and smart, but why else? It wasn't so much that there weren't reasons for her loving him, but that I feel her love for him wasn't articulated so well.
I didn't dislike this book, but it wasn't quite enjoyable, either. Normally I would give something like this two smilies, but I feel like Elizabeth Scott is an amazing author and I've heard great things about her two other books, so 3 smilies out of 5.
5 comments:
I'm surprised you thought this book (especially the characters) was simple. I loved the book (and haven't loved many of Elizabeth Scott's books) and found the characters and their relationships to be pretty well-developed and complex. Especially Brianna. But to be honest it's kind of nice to see someone who disagrees with me because so often I feel like I'm the one who doesn't love a lot of the books everyone else is gaga for.
Yeah, a lot of people seemed to really love the book. I know what you mean about disliking books other people are head-over-heels in love with!
I was also under the impression that this was a light read. Thanks for the heads up! :)
p.s. - love your blog title! I guess words can get a little violent at times. ;)
Elle: Haha, you're welcome :D And thanks! Yup, but words also digest humans really well.
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