lisa_d9 's review for:

Unteachable by Elliot Wake

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Spoiler

What I didn't like about this:
1. Maise was arrogant and full of herself. She was completely up herself, constantly pointing out how beautiful she was.
2. Evan's secret. The fact that he'd had an affair with a student before and that he blamed the student for pursuing him. The way he talked about the whole thing was shitty. I'd liked him somewhat until that point but then I thought he was terrible. It was like "Oh yeah, my name is really Eric. I had to change my name because I knocked up a 17 year old student who pursued me and she was nothing like you. I didn't even like her. Blech."
3. The relationship. So Maise and "Evan" meet on a rollercoaster ride at a fair. They then spend some time together and they have sex after she assures him that she's 21. Then afterwards, she makes an excuse to leave. When she finds out he is her teacher, she's all about it and so is he. He only resists for like a week before he's trying to find ways to bang her. Keeping it classy. They both justify it by saying she's 18 and they met before they knew they were going to be teacher/student. However, they know they have to hide it because it's actually not legal. And they both get off on the fact that it's wrong and also because they are carrying out the student/teacher fantasy.
4. The last 25% of the book. It got awkward fast. Once Evan's past was uncovered, it got weird. They broke up and then Maise tracked Evan down to his new school and they had an awkward period where they were not really together but fucking around. Then they were mostly together and Maise wanted Evan to move to L.A with her and after all they'd been through, Evan was not into it. Kind of like "Oh, you're young. I just want you to be happy so I don't think I should go with you."It was just unnecessary!
5. No feelings. I had no feelings for the characters or their relationship. I didn't care.
6. The flowery writing. Sometimes the writing was okay and other times it was super flowery.
7. Weird side plots. Mother is a drug dealer who owes a lot of money to drug overlord who threatens Maise at some point. Girl in class who is a coke addict and blackmails Maise into dealing her drugs. Wesley is the only friend Maise has and seems cool until he shows his movie in film class and it's all creepy material he's gotten from stalking Maise.

So yeah. It wasn't great for me. It was readable but it had a lot of faults. Lots of people love this book so I'm in the minority, it seems. I'm okay with that. It wasn't bad but it wasn't great.