The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distr...

I enjoy Amy Spalding’s books a lot and this was an fun premise. The plot was a little all over the place, but the characters were great.

This is book # 2 in the Creative HeArts series.  It can be read as a standalone novel.  This book and the others will make more sense and give more reader enjoyment and understanding, should you choose to read them in the order intended.

Willa gets her father back only to find out he has been secretly dating a starlet.  Then he is getting married?  And she gets a lying hottie for a stepbrother to go with it.

Willa cannot decide if she is happy for her dad, or bummed out that everything is changing in her life and not a single thing is for her!  Now she has two boys attention and she is not sure she wants it.  What is a girl to do?  

Senior year is supposed to go smoothly, right?  Well Willa has so much going on in a book just full of surprises and twists on every corner.  I think this was a great part of the series and cannot wait for the next book.  I give this story a 4/5 Kitty's Paws UP!

***This ARC was given by Netgally.com and its publisher, in return for an honest review.

The New Guy (and Other Senior Year Distr...

A ridiculously cute, formerly-famous new guy dropping into your life? It's practically every girl's dream.

But not Jules McCallister-Morgan's.

I realize that on paper I look like your standard type-A, neurotic, overachiever. And maybe I am. But I didn't get to be the editor of my school's long-revered newspaper by just showing up*. I have one main goal for my senior year-early acceptance into my first choice Ivy League college-and I will not be deterred by best friends, moms who think I could stand to "live a little," or boys.

At least, that was the plan before I knew about Alex Powell**.

And before Alex Powell betrayed me***.

I know what you're thinking: Calm down, Jules. But you don't understand. This stuff matters. This is my life. And I'm not going down without a fight.

* Okay, I sort of did. But it's a sore subject.

** I mean, I guess everyone knows about Alex Powell? Two years ago, you couldn't go anywhere without hearing about viral video boy band sensation Chaos 4 All. Two years ago, Alex Powell was famous.

***Some people think I'm overreacting. But this. Means. War.

Filled with romance, rivalry, and passive-aggressive dog walking, Amy Spalding delivers a hilariously relatable high school story that's sure to have you falling for The New Guy.

This was a really cute book, but I felt like there were some aspects that felt a little juvenile or unreal.

The relationship between Alex and Jules progressed way too fast since Jules supposedly was completely against boys and not at all interested in Alex. It would have been a lot more fun to see them have a longer period of flirting and of Jules trying not to fall for him. She ended up seeming just a total pushover in his regard; one kiss from him, and she's forgotten all of the reasons she had decided not to kiss him.

I felt like there were a lot of conflicts that just were solved too easily, that in real life would have been blown up a lot bigger and required a lot more discussion and solving than actually happened. If one has a huge conflict with their best friend, simply having dinner doesn't make it all better. I was frustrated by the lack of realism.

The main plot was a conflict over a dying newspaper, but the ending was honestly what I had thought of at the beginning and thus the entire conflict felt much more middle school than high school. I was also surprised by how many characters got involved within the conflict.

This was cute and I think the author has potential, but I felt that there were aspects that could have made it into a stronger YA rom com.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My Thoughts - 4 out of 5 Unicorns - I really liked it!!!

***Received a copy of the ebook for an honest review

The cover definitely screams high school and vampire, so I like it :)

This is the first book in the series, and it is about 180ish pages long.  This is a new author for me.  I always try to read a mix of YA stuff just in case a student needs suggestions for something they might like to read.

This book started slow for me, but this is usually a me issue when I start a new series and trying to get connected with the characters and world that the author has created.  While it was bumpy for me at the start, I was completely sucked into the story by the end.  Meg and her friends are typical high school students with their attitudes, parental issues, and trying to become their own person.  The paranormal aspects just makes me more interesting for me since I live high school issues daily :)  Some of the characters started on my should-be-slapped list, but in the end, they removed from the list.  This doesn’t mean they were bad characters just the characters did something to irk me so I thought they should be slapped to adjust the tudes :)

I definitely want to check out more of this series because I think it will get better as the series goes on especially once you establish those connections in the world.  I loved J.A.’s humor in this book especially between Meg and Alexander.  I was definitely laughing out loud :)

I recommend this book to readers who like high school drama and troubles with a paranormal twist :)  This would definitely be a great addition to my classroom library in the future :)