Fresh Fridays: On Friday, I review a brand new series (ie. only has one book released so far) to see if the series is worth keeping up with. Here is this week’s offering:
New England Rocks by Christina Courtenay | New England Rocks Series
Series: New England Rocks or Northbrooke High
Author: Christina Courtenay writing as Pia Fenton
# of Books: 4 (New England Rocks, New England Crush, New England TLC, New England Dreams)
Book Order: Connected
Complete?: Yes
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Drama, Contemporary
Heat Rating: cool
Point of View: Third Person, Single
I want to make it clear that I didn’t finish this book. I tried–I really did–but I enacted my 50-page rule and decided to stop reading this book and I’ll explain why below.
First, this book is completely a Young Adult novel. It’s nowhere close to a New Adult novel so don’t let the cover fool you like it did to me. It’s tame and high-school soap-opera-y which is why I decided to stop reading it.
If I was about 5 years younger (ie. a teenager) I would have probably enjoyed this book. But after reading so many New Adult novels that deal with mature subject matter (not the sexy stuff, but the pasts filled with tragedy and abuse) this book was just so tame in comparison. The only “thrilling” part was the love triangle but it was just so rudimentary in its delivery I didn’t care.
I felt like Rain was a boring character. She comes across as pretentious and because of this I had a hard time connecting or liking her. She isn’t a complete badass–again, very tame–and I felt like she fell into every stereotype of a young adult heroine: new girl in a new school; good looking and every boy is attracted to her but she doesn’t really know it; etc. I just didn’t find anything refreshing in it and the added love triangle didn’t do much for me. At least the choice seemed pretty obvious to me based on who Jesse’s girlfriend is so I didn’t find it annoying.
I also didn’t find Jesse to be that much of a redeemable character. He was a bit of an asshat from what I read at the start–but I think if I read a little more of the book I might have been more on his side because his story started to develop a little more just as I started quit.
I think I would have liked it more if this book was told from a first person POV instead of third person. I’m not sure if it would have improved the connection to the characters or not but it just felt odd to read this type of young adult romance in a third person perspective.
Rating: 2/5
I’m not sure when/if the next book is set to be released but I won’t be picking it up. I probably won’t ever finish this book and that is A-OK with me. People under the age of 18 will probably enjoy this light-hearted read. But fans of New Adult novels will find this a little boring and tame.
Similar Reads:
- Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti
Synopsis for New England Rocks (from Goodreads):
When Rain Mackenzie is expelled from her British boarding school, she can t believe her bad luck. Not only is she forced to move to New England, USA, she’s also sent to the local high school as a punishment.
Rain makes it her mission to dislike everything about Northbrooke High, but what she doesn’t bank on is meeting Jesse Devlin …
Jesse is the hottest guy Rain’s ever seen and he plays guitar in an awesome rock band!
There’s just one small problem … Jesse already has a girlfriend, little miss perfect Amber Lawrence, who looks set to cause trouble as Rain and Jesse grow closer.
But, what does it matter? New England sucks anyway, and Rain doesn’t plan on sticking around …
Does she?
Connect: 
