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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Audiobook Review:
The beautiful imagery combined with Leah Raeder's striking prose in Unteachable was so alluring to me. However, for me the writing was not enough to hold the story together. I felt like the story lacked a strong plot and relied heavily on sexual attraction.
Maisie is an eighteen-year old high school student looking for love in all the wrong places. Her mother is a drug dealer and prostitutes herself in order to pay for her own drug addiction and her dad is out of the picture. Maisie only has one person on whom she can depend—herself. Her emotional fragility was so clear and well-developed. She makes no apologies about her sexual escapades and prides herself on her freedom to choose her sexual partners. Many of those she chooses to sleep with are much older than her. It seems to me that she yearns for the love she doesn't get at home. And that fact made me so sad for her.
Early on in the story Masie meets Evan, a thirty-two year old man, at a local carnival and they spend a passionate night with each other. Their attraction and chemistry is instant and are immediately drawn to one another. Both are shocked when Maisie walks into her theater class to find that Evan is her teacher. Unable to stay away from each other, both begin a heated affair that Maisie must keep secret from everyone, including her friend, who begins to suspect something is going on.
I had a few issues with this book. Evan and Maisie have sex a lot. I didn't really understand their attraction to one another (outside of the obvious physical attraction) because their relationship so sexually based. I needed more there. I am not a prude and don't mind sex in my books, but I wanted there to be more of a focus on their relationship. It felt too insta-lusty and I never really fell for them like I was supposed to. The relationship that I was rooting for was between Maise and her friend. I loved how his mother took Maise under wing, knowing what Maise was going through.
At one point Evan admits that Maise is age is what drew him to her at first. To be honest, that creeped me out a little bit. I've read books where the characters have a huge age difference, but the author makes it work in some way. The fact that Evan liked her because she was young was a little weird and vice versa (Maisie liking Evan because he is older).
Raeder can write, there's no question, but her writing often overpowered the story for me. The flowery prose, though beautiful, was almost too much.
* I received this audiobook from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
2 stars
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5 poetic stars!
Unteachable, was on my TBR for ages! And I knew that the moment I read it, there would be another book that I would want to forget just so I can read it again. I was right. Even though I put it off for as long as possible, it was always there on the back on my mind, and I would wait just a little longer for the epicness that was sure to follow.
Basically this book is a poem but longer. And I felt the urge to hug Maise close and hold her forever.
“There are moments, when you’re getting to know someone, when you realize something deep and buried in you is deep and buried in them, too. It feels like meeting a stranger you’ve known your whole life.”
Maise and Evan.
They meet at the carnival.
They hook up.
She lied.
He wanted more.
She wanted more.
But maybe not like this...
"He could have said, I'm a teacher, and everything would have been different."
Maise is a broken girl, she has an absent father and a junkie mom.
“I see the lights every night. It seems like the whole world has figured out how to be happy, but no one's letting me in on the secret.”
She was forced to be to adult. She was forced to raise herself up. Daddy issues and all. She has random hook-ups and lies about her age. He is here to stay though.
“Part of falling in love with someone is actually falling in love with yourself. Realizing that you're gorgeous, you're fearless and unpredictable, you're a firecracker spitting light, entrancing a hundred faces that stare up at you with starry eyes.”
The readers are constantly hit with Maise's thoughts about getting caught.
"We knew what we were doing, Your Honor."
Because having an affair with your teacher is dangerous, and even if she is legal, he could loose his job.
But he doesn't care...
So they try... against all odds, they try to keep their relationship hidden and they manage to do that for a little while.
They kiss and hide and it is plain obvious but no one knows.
Until they do...
“That's another thing about lies: if you convince yourself they're true, they become true.A lie is a discrepancy of belief, not fact.”
And shit hits the fan.
The secret is not a secret anymore and even though things seemed to be perfect within their little bubble, when that bursts, other secrets come out.
But Maise wants to live this. And she wants to leave town, with him. Go to Hollywood and start over. Leave her junkie mom behind and her friends that seem to have formed the wrong opinion of her.
And he wants her to live.
Be free, without him, be a kid.
But neither had a proper childhood. So they stay together. They try.
“Who fixes broken people? Is it only other broken people, ones who've already been ruined? And do we need to be fixed? It was the messiness and hurt in our pasts that drove us, and that same hurt connected us at a subdermal level, the kind of scars written so deeply in your cells that you can't even see them anymore, only recognize them in someone else.”
A must read and definitely a story that will stay with me!
Originally posted on Sab The Book Eater
Here lies Unteachable, the new adult novel that stressed the shit out of me.
I would totally write that on the book's gravestone if I buried it like how Joey of FRIENDS stuffs The Shining in his freezer whenever he got to the scary parts
I'm totally kidding. Or not.
Unteachable is not like most of your usual new adult novels (save for the many many sex in each chapter... but I'll get to that later). For starters, the main character Maise is... colorful. She's headstrong but a bit fragile and scared on the inside. She can be crass but she's also delicate. She's a contradiction of a lot of things but surprisingly, it all works. You know how there are a lot of NA characters who pretend to be good but are actually hypocrites? Nope, Maise isn't like that. She fearlessly owns up to who she is or what she does, even if she can be a class A bitch lots of times. It's refreshing, especially in a new adult novel.
I think, with everything going on in the book, Maise's realness made for a great anchor in a book filled with passion, romance, and drama. There was a lot of that ~new adult flare~ to lengthen the plot but what made me interested in all of it was our protagonist. You don't need too much realism in a book but at least have some form of it to keep the readers glued til the end. In this book, it was Maise and the way she took everything in and reacted on/to them. Am I making sense? I HOPE I AM.
Not a lot of people know this about me, but my top two favorite tropes are: 1) faux-relationships turning real and 2) teacher-student relationships. (You may judge me. I give you permission.) The latter being, quite frankly, the main reason why I picked this book up. Much to my disappointment though, the build up was lacking. It started so fast and kind of stalled in the middle and went quickly again towards the end. There was none of the excitement brought about by a budding (forbidden) relationship. It's like hiding was just so easy for them! I didn't feel any real threat to their relationship except for the school diva threatening to tell on them but she just seemed like a scapegoat towards the end.
I realize that maybe the real struggle in their relationship isn't really how they're going to keep their love a secret but rather how they'll deal with their individual issues and still be together. Sounds pretty much like a regular romance novel but the difference is their age gap. Since Maise is a highschool senior and Evan is in his 30s, there was a lot of talk on whether they should stick it out even if she had a whole future ahead of her outside of their small town. It all makes perfect sense but to me it sort of dulls out the whole forbidden fruit idea. But for all I know, maybe the author didn't really intend to focus on it in the first place.
A lot of the things in the book really got me thinking if I like the book more for it or less. But I am sure that there is one thing that I do not like about the book and it is is the gazillion sex scenes. I'm not a prude, I'm totally fine with detailed descriptions of sex in books. However, when there is waaaaaaaay too much of it, it bores me. After the third one I basically skimmed every similar scene after. Constant love making does not convince me that the characters have chemistry and that I should root for them. It takes more than that to build a really good romance (in life and in books! LOL).
Towards the end, my reading experience was saved. Their happily ever after is inevitable but it was the last few chapters beautifully written with so much love and passion that got me. It's bizarre! One minute I want to get it over with, the next I'm all teary-eyed! It was a confusing yet pleasant feeling.
Would I recommend Unteachable? Yes. It's not all bad but it's not OMG good for me either. It's worth the try though, that I can say. I've said this before about other books and it still rings true: you might have better luck with it than me.
Here lies Unteachable, the new adult novel that stressed the shit out of me.
I would totally write that on the book's gravestone if I buried it like how Joey of FRIENDS stuffs The Shining in his freezer whenever he got to the scary parts
I'm totally kidding. Or not.
Unteachable is not like most of your usual new adult novels (save for the many many sex in each chapter... but I'll get to that later). For starters, the main character Maise is... colorful. She's headstrong but a bit fragile and scared on the inside. She can be crass but she's also delicate. She's a contradiction of a lot of things but surprisingly, it all works. You know how there are a lot of NA characters who pretend to be good but are actually hypocrites? Nope, Maise isn't like that. She fearlessly owns up to who she is or what she does, even if she can be a class A bitch lots of times. It's refreshing, especially in a new adult novel.
I think, with everything going on in the book, Maise's realness made for a great anchor in a book filled with passion, romance, and drama. There was a lot of that ~new adult flare~ to lengthen the plot but what made me interested in all of it was our protagonist. You don't need too much realism in a book but at least have some form of it to keep the readers glued til the end. In this book, it was Maise and the way she took everything in and reacted on/to them. Am I making sense? I HOPE I AM.
Not a lot of people know this about me, but my top two favorite tropes are: 1) faux-relationships turning real and 2) teacher-student relationships. (You may judge me. I give you permission.) The latter being, quite frankly, the main reason why I picked this book up. Much to my disappointment though, the build up was lacking. It started so fast and kind of stalled in the middle and went quickly again towards the end. There was none of the excitement brought about by a budding (forbidden) relationship. It's like hiding was just so easy for them! I didn't feel any real threat to their relationship except for the school diva threatening to tell on them but she just seemed like a scapegoat towards the end.
I realize that maybe the real struggle in their relationship isn't really how they're going to keep their love a secret but rather how they'll deal with their individual issues and still be together. Sounds pretty much like a regular romance novel but the difference is their age gap. Since Maise is a highschool senior and Evan is in his 30s, there was a lot of talk on whether they should stick it out even if she had a whole future ahead of her outside of their small town. It all makes perfect sense but to me it sort of dulls out the whole forbidden fruit idea. But for all I know, maybe the author didn't really intend to focus on it in the first place.
A lot of the things in the book really got me thinking if I like the book more for it or less. But I am sure that there is one thing that I do not like about the book and it is is the gazillion sex scenes. I'm not a prude, I'm totally fine with detailed descriptions of sex in books. However, when there is waaaaaaaay too much of it, it bores me. After the third one I basically skimmed every similar scene after. Constant love making does not convince me that the characters have chemistry and that I should root for them. It takes more than that to build a really good romance (in life and in books! LOL).
Towards the end, my reading experience was saved. Their happily ever after is inevitable but it was the last few chapters beautifully written with so much love and passion that got me. It's bizarre! One minute I want to get it over with, the next I'm all teary-eyed! It was a confusing yet pleasant feeling.
Would I recommend Unteachable? Yes. It's not all bad but it's not OMG good for me either. It's worth the try though, that I can say. I've said this before about other books and it still rings true: you might have better luck with it than me.
“That's all life is. Breathing in, breathing out. The space between two breaths.”
Was hesitant going into this because of the age-gap relationship, but it’s done well and makes sense for the people in this book (and it’s legal lol). Overall, it had way more substance to it than I expected, it’s beautifully written and will definitely have you reflecting on life and happiness.
It’s very real, the story and characters are very intentionally imperfect.
The author has a knack for describing the obscure and fleeting feelings/thoughts that we all have as humans but are usually unspoken and seem to be nearly impossible to sum up in a few words. So it’s super relatable & I honestly don’t know how someone could read this and not end up relating it to their own self/life/issues.
A bit overkill with the amount of sex scenes, especially around the middle of the book. It starts to drag a little but it picks back up towards the end - which is a satisfying one.
Was hesitant going into this because of the age-gap relationship, but it’s done well and makes sense for the people in this book (and it’s legal lol). Overall, it had way more substance to it than I expected, it’s beautifully written and will definitely have you reflecting on life and happiness.
It’s very real, the story and characters are very intentionally imperfect.
The author has a knack for describing the obscure and fleeting feelings/thoughts that we all have as humans but are usually unspoken and seem to be nearly impossible to sum up in a few words. So it’s super relatable & I honestly don’t know how someone could read this and not end up relating it to their own self/life/issues.
A bit overkill with the amount of sex scenes, especially around the middle of the book. It starts to drag a little but it picks back up towards the end - which is a satisfying one.
“here’s looking at you kid”
Maise; 18, high school senior, Irish. absent father and drug addicted/dealer mother. When she meets evan wilke at the carnival on a roller coaster. instant chemistry. she says she’s 21. they fuck in his car but it’s different - he wants to Know her, that scares her (she’s used to fucking and running before the man can.) she bikes away from him knowing that fuck was different than the rest. she meets wesley, loner who latches onto her, unlikely friendship. on the first day of school maise walks into her media studies class. new teacher; mr. evan wilke. they continue their affair in private, shit happens and truths come out. at the end of the book. she dumps him and goes to leave Then on the flight. then....... “You’re pretty brave,” the guy beside me said, “sitting up front by yourself.”
it’s very emotionally confusing. she’s the rebel child everyone my age wishes to be. and you know how bad their relationship is, while completely legal it’s not morally correct. But, it still has you hooked, swooning. the way it’s written makes you forgive him over and over. also the drug takedown is cool. i like wesleys mom, siobhan.
9/10 a cluster fuck of every great teen writing trope.
favourite parts; casablanca references. mirroring the start and ending (plane and roller coaster). joni reference (““You’re in my blood like holy wine. And before you think that’s cheesy, that’s Joni Mitchell”)
repetition of quotes like “‘Try’ being the operative word,” he said,”.
“Things I didn’t expect to do my senior year:
Become a drug dealer.
Become my mother.
Find and lose the love of my life.”
Maise; 18, high school senior, Irish. absent father and drug addicted/dealer mother. When she meets evan wilke at the carnival on a roller coaster. instant chemistry. she says she’s 21. they fuck in his car but it’s different - he wants to Know her, that scares her (she’s used to fucking and running before the man can.) she bikes away from him knowing that fuck was different than the rest. she meets wesley, loner who latches onto her, unlikely friendship. on the first day of school maise walks into her media studies class. new teacher; mr. evan wilke. they continue their affair in private, shit happens and truths come out. at the end of the book. she dumps him and goes to leave Then on the flight. then....... “You’re pretty brave,” the guy beside me said, “sitting up front by yourself.”
it’s very emotionally confusing. she’s the rebel child everyone my age wishes to be. and you know how bad their relationship is, while completely legal it’s not morally correct. But, it still has you hooked, swooning. the way it’s written makes you forgive him over and over. also the drug takedown is cool. i like wesleys mom, siobhan.
9/10 a cluster fuck of every great teen writing trope.
favourite parts; casablanca references. mirroring the start and ending (plane and roller coaster). joni reference (““You’re in my blood like holy wine. And before you think that’s cheesy, that’s Joni Mitchell”)
repetition of quotes like “‘Try’ being the operative word,” he said,”.
“Things I didn’t expect to do my senior year:
Become a drug dealer.
Become my mother.
Find and lose the love of my life.”
I liked it until the last few chapters. Once all about Evan is revealed, I didn’t like him anymore and wished Maze thought that way too.
This book had some elements I expected and some I hoped for, with the former unfortunately more frequent.
It's definitely very much similar to other NA's, which was disappointing, but it still had a fresh approach with a sexually empowered, instead of inexperienced girl and a number of interesting characters, situations and various interests.
Another great thing is that, thanks to the writing, it felt so amazingly real, like being Maise, I actually had moments of sudden stopping in the middle of reading because I realized it was actually a book. But as soon as I got back into the story all consciousness of it being fictional vanished again.
There was A LOT of graphics in the intercourse description. Intercourse occurrence wasn't too smothering, but it could get tiresome at times, since it happens often. And if it doesn't happen, it's still thought/talked about.
The biggest thing that bothered me, though, is the seeming lack of greater complexity of characters, aside from protagonist. They were individuals with their own stories and unique personalities and places in the world etc. However, on the thin line between the character's complexity for it's own sake and character's complexity for the story of the protagonist, many books fall with the latter, while either not caring about the former or aiming it and missing. This book, i think, having in mind author's reputation, aimed, and missed by just a little, but still missed. For example, Evan, even after all revelations, still felt frustratingly and unnecessary mysterious, and if it weren't for the graphical and physical part, I could have believed he'd been imagined, had that been seriously considered.
So, I've had some not so small problems with it, but it was still a great journey, with meaningful thoughts, events, real-life situations(probably, since I don't go out much and am not included in the general events) and problems, which, according to me-especially internal, were very much understandable and relatable; amazing, not enough emphasizable, great, inward-pulling writing with interesting storyline and diverse characters. Also erotica, if you're into that.
It's definitely very much similar to other NA's, which was disappointing, but it still had a fresh approach with a sexually empowered, instead of inexperienced girl and a number of interesting characters, situations and various interests.
Another great thing is that, thanks to the writing, it felt so amazingly real, like being Maise, I actually had moments of sudden stopping in the middle of reading because I realized it was actually a book. But as soon as I got back into the story all consciousness of it being fictional vanished again.
There was A LOT of graphics in the intercourse description. Intercourse occurrence wasn't too smothering, but it could get tiresome at times, since it happens often. And if it doesn't happen, it's still thought/talked about.
The biggest thing that bothered me, though, is the seeming lack of greater complexity of characters, aside from protagonist. They were individuals with their own stories and unique personalities and places in the world etc. However, on the thin line between the character's complexity for it's own sake and character's complexity for the story of the protagonist, many books fall with the latter, while either not caring about the former or aiming it and missing. This book, i think, having in mind author's reputation, aimed, and missed by just a little, but still missed. For example, Evan, even after all revelations, still felt frustratingly and unnecessary mysterious, and if it weren't for the graphical and physical part, I could have believed he'd been imagined, had that been seriously considered.
So, I've had some not so small problems with it, but it was still a great journey, with meaningful thoughts, events, real-life situations(probably, since I don't go out much and am not included in the general events) and problems, which, according to me-especially internal, were very much understandable and relatable; amazing, not enough emphasizable, great, inward-pulling writing with interesting storyline and diverse characters. Also erotica, if you're into that.
WOW!! beautifully written and characters you really care for. I wanted to know what happened but at same time I never wanted this book to end