So cute! If you want a funny, sweet, teen romance/drama this is a great book. I found Ellie to be relatable which was a nice balance to Seth-who was a bit 'much'. I would have given it 5 stars if he were more realistic but it didn't ruin the book or anything. Still cute and enjoyable!

Kelly Oram definitely knows how to write a book - SERIAL HOTTIE was just such a fun book to read, with such unusual characters; mainly, stalkers. But not the creepy kind. Well, a little bit creepy, but mostly just really amusing, sweet and fun. 
The characters in the story are, as mentioned before, pretty unique.

Ellie is the main character and the voice of the story. She's strong and throughout the book discovers herself as both a girl and a tomboy, learning to accept both parts in her, to realize there's no shame in wearing girly cloths. She's also feisty and takes crap from no-one, which I loved. 
But... she was also SUPER frustrating! Toward the end I was screaming at her for her stupidity!
"Listen to your guts and STOP BEATING ON YOUR BOYFRIEND FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!"
I cried out-loud. She didn't listen :< 

Angela is Ellie's older sister. I had a love/hate relationship with her. 
I hated her because: at first, she refused to listen to the fact Ellie was truly scared of Seth, and later because she kept trying to set them apart.
But she was doing it all from a good place, all because she cares, so I couldn't really hate her, you know?

Seth is Ellie's new neighbor, and he's a really creepy (but also really sweet) stalker. But all those are a...

 

**To read the rest of this review, click the title!!**

Half stupid and half adorable.

I'm not certain I know why I picked up this book and started reading it all of a sudden.  (Especially with all the books on my TBR list that I have lined up... but y'know, stuff happens.)  It was Amazon Kindle cheap, it sounded cute, I like mysteries... and I might have needed a distraction from another book I'm not quite getting into right now.

 

Nonetheless, this book was cute, breezy, fast-paced, and despite a slight need for a good beta-read or editing as well as some tweaking on some factors I found a bit unsettling, it was actually an eerily addictive read once I got started on it.

 

I'm not going to deny that I kind of liked the characters and the interactions of all the friends.  I especially loved watching Ellie and Angela's relationship grow close as sisters -- it was rather nice.  In fact, I think I really liked Ellie's interactions with just about everyone and I liked that she was a no-nonsense, spunky, stand-up-for-herself type of girl who didn't take crap sitting down.  Of course, she had a tendency towards the irrational (pegging Seth as a serial killer type before she'd even officially met him), and when she got mean, she got downright mean, but when she was kickass, she was pretty damn cool.

 

Even the three J's (what little appearance they made) were delightful to see around.  I just wished we got to see more of them cause they seemed adorable... in a sense.

 

Mainly, Ellie's character has given me faith in the young women of our world because she reacts appropriately to creepy-stalker guys even though he's as gorgeous as he is hot.  When the boy breaks into her room to sit and play a video game he doesn't like just to get her attention, thank goodness she thought it disturbing and NOT swoon-worthy like her sister did!  She DID NOT fantasize him watching her sleep at night... she locked her windows and became extremely cautious about letting him into the house.  She DID NOT swoon over the crazy hot neighbor boy who was, in fact, a little disturbingly unstable and creepy.  

 

I gave her props for not going into instalove territory... though it still doesn't mean the relationship in the latter parts of the book sat well with me.  Seth still got off easy on a lot of his actions just because he's good-looking -- actions that probably would not have gone over well if he were, well, NOT good-looking.  Then again, Ellie has her own weirdness that seems highly inappropriate, even if not extremely intense up to Seth's level.

 

She can be pretty manipulative and stalker-ish as well.  And might I suggest anger management for the lot of these kids?  My goodness, the amount of blood shed that was non-serial killer-related was a bit much.  Either that, or I just grew up in a very, very tame community and had a very, very quiet life as a teenager.

 

While Seth does show a lot of behavior that I think might require some toning down as well as some checking (for instance, I love when Ellie puts him in his place by bluntly telling him that he does not own her and that he needs to quit bossing her around and she actually means it), I also feel like Ellie jumped to conclusions about him way too quickly with the name calling and the serial killer accusations.  Then again, he did sneak into her room without her knowledge and he did seem to get too touchy-feely with her when she was obviously uncomfortable with it.  So I'm a little more forgiving of her when she gets all rude and in his face about his behavior.

 

Nonetheless, it was quite apparent that Seth would not be the serial killer.  It was more apparent that he was involved in investigating the murders rather than committing them.  Something about plot twists and stuff like that...  But kudos for the creepy, stalker-ish behavior that made it seem like he could be the most likely suspect.

 

While I may have enjoyed the reading of this book, the tone of the story didn't quite sit well with me.  We essentially have a serial murder occurring, but the story is being told in the flippant tone of a stubborn, rebellious, teenaged, ticking time bomb of angry who could very well be the next victim.

 

Then again, the entire story and characters unfolded kind of weird for me.

 

In a nutshell:  I seemed to have finished said book rather quickly.  O.o

 

Other reviews at The Book Babe's Reads.Due to copy and paste, formatting has been lost.Serial Hottie was a weird read for me. I love everything that Kelly Oram has ever done, so I went into this with high expectations. Sadly, this book didn't really meet them. My first thoughts about Seth were pretty bad-- because he was creepy. And she still liked him, and wanted to be with him, even though he creeped her out so bad. I am really, really, really not like that. If someone creeps me out, I just can't stand to even be around them. So that just didn't ring true for me. I can't imagine wanting to hang out with someone who creeped me out-- no matter how hot he was.Aside from that, though, Ellie really was a good character. She was really spunky and funny, and she did some unexpected yet hilarious things throughout the book. I liked that she always said what she thought (even if she didn't mean to) and that she was one of the guys. I love the idea of that. She takes hits and sexist comments, and that just made me love her more. Not only that, but I loved her interactions and relationship with the J's. They were such dorky, great guys, and they came off perfectly as her best friends. One of my big problems with Ellie (aside from the attraction to a guy she's skeeved out by) is that she goes back and forth constantly with said guy. You get a few chapters from his point of view in the end, and it must've sucked to be him.Speaking of Seth, I do agree with Ellie. He is pretty creepy. Sometimes he can be the sweetest guy ever, and I realize that something bad happened to him, but seriously. I am off-put by his creepiness. He's overly possessive and jealous too. It actually made me wonder if he was that way because he was used to getting what he wanted, being so hot and all? I don't know, but their relationship was a whole new definition of totally screwed up. Towards the end of the book, I was all kinds of freaked out, you don't even know. Especially because I did think that he was the serial killer. So I have to give Kelly props for that set-up.For the sake of spoilers, I can't tell you whether Seth is the killer or not-- but let's just say that I was really surprised when I finally figured out who it was. Instant shock-factor. All in all, Serial Hottie was a likable read, but I just can't get over the fact that Seth was so creepy and she still wanted him?? Why??