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storiesandstitches 's review for:
Tease
by Amanda Maciel
I hate this book more than Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover and White Fur by Jardine Labaire, and that's really saying something. This is just going to be me ranting and raving about this pile of rubbish so please don't expect a coherent review. If you're reading this, you probably have read the book and hated it as much as I did, or you'll never read the book and you just find rants amusing. I know I do.
This book deals with subjects such as bullying, suicide, friendships, relationships and is in the pov of a bully instead of the victim. "That's different", I thought. I was expecting this novel to be filled with personal growth, enlightenment, remorse, and compassion but this book had absolutely none of that!! A wet rag has more depth than this bound waste of paper! Plot holes, cardboard cut out characters, pointless dramatic scenes, no development at all be it character or plot, cringey dialogue! All telling no showing.
Let's start off with the characters. They're your typical high school clique. Brielle is the "Queen B", Sara (the protagonist) who is Brielle's side kick who doesn't have a mind of her own and will do and say whatever Brielle wants, Dylan/Jacob/Tyler who are the "cool guys" and love interests. I know Dylan plays some sport. I can't even remember what the other guys do. There's also a Kyle thrown in there, and a few random girls. Noelle becomes a pretty major character near the end, but she literally just pops up out of nowhere. I think she was dating Kyle before Emma stole him (they still hang out in the same friend group though. And apparently the guys trash talk Emma but still have no problem sleeping with her or supposedly at least. Everyone seems to think Emma is having sex with everyone but there's no evidence) Carmichael is the "bad boy with tattoos and black t-shirts" whom Sara develops a relationship with, despite her reservations because after all...she is a "cool girl". Lastly, there's Emma, the girl who committed suicide. These characters have no fucking depth WHATSOEVER! We don't get to know any of them! I finished the book not feeling any more connected with Sara than I did at the beginning.
The author introduced a few important plot devices that I thought would be big turning points, but they were never brought up and added absolutely nothing to the story! They are as follows:
1) We find out fairly early on that Brielle's bragging about losing her virginity to a hot older guy was a front (of course). It ended up not being nearly as romantic as she hoped and just "laid on top of her and did it" and that was that. She ends up having a major emotional breakdown in the car. I thought, "Great! This is where we are going to see the vunerable side of this typical mean girl! Here comes some depth." But nope! She wipes her eyes, drags her friend into VS to buy some underwear, and the whole situation is never resolved. It's never even brought up again.
2) Tommy, Sara's little brother, has been acting strange after summer camp, and the reader is left wondering why (it wasn't very hard to figure out though). Tommy and Sara sit down and have a talk. She finds out that Tommy was ridiculed at camp because his sister is a bully and she caused a girl to kill herself. Near the end, Sara is "concerned" because she glances out the car window after dropping Tommy off at school and she sees he's hanging out with a new friend named Liam who wears tough baggy clothes (????). She drives away and "tries not to worry about her brother". Again....Tommy's troubles are never brought up again....
Sara is the most annoying, whiny, and shallow character ever. Her whole reason for hating Emma and making her life a living hell is because she supposedly sleeps with everyone's boyfriend, including Sara's. When Sara finds Dylan making out with Emma at a party she gets so angry and her and Brielle devise all these ridiculous to try and get her transferred again. She wants Dylan back in the meantime because he's sooo perfect (even though he clearly cheated on her DURING A PARTY AT THE HOTEL WHERE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE "ROMANTIC SEX") But nope...it's all Emma's fault. Sure, she should not have hooked up with Dylan knowing that he was with Sara...but how the hell is Dylan the saint in all this?!?)
This book is the same damn thing over and over again. It switches from past and present, but it's all still the same. The past tense is in a span of 3 months. Sara and Brielle bully Emma relentlessly and pulls a bunch of mean pranks on her. She gets called a slut and skank on the daily and even has a fake facebook page made about her. Sara's inner monologue is pretty much just "IhateEmmashehasruinedmylifesheissuchaslutohnomaybeI'mtakingallofthistoofarbutthisisallBrielle'sideaanyway". The present tense is her going back and forth to her lawyer and therapist where she adamantly denies any wrongdoing on her part. It's all Emma's fault, she killed herself and woe is me! My boyfriend was stolen. There is absolutely no fucking accountability which I suppose is the point because that gives the character a chance to grow and mature. Sara finally does in like the last 5 pages but we have no idea how or when she "sees the light". We don't see her thought process or anything at all. It was all telling and no showing.
Don't expect to learn anything anything about Emma. I realize the book is in the perspective of the bully and we aren't meant to see anything in the point of view of the victim, but we learn nothing about her at all! All we know is she is supposedly promiscuous, sensitive, and goes to therapy. it doesn't get any deeper than that. Her suicide happens so abruptly. It's basically just stated in the book that she committed suicide and everyone blames all of a sudden blames Sara and the gang. That's it. Boom. It's done. If that's not bad enough, there were two (or three...can't remember because all the characters blend together) statutory rape accusations that basically got thrown out the window. The first one nothing came of it because why....we don't know (???? Emma got grounded but the guy gets off scot-free) and the latter because there wasn't enough evidence. Fair enough, but there was no lesson learned here, very much like the rest of the book.
I understand this book is about teens and the targeted audience is younger, but I read a ton of YA and just because it's "meant" for a younger audience doesn't mean it has to be watered down, shallow, underdeveloped garbage such as this. There is a lot of thought provoking teen books out there that allow you to sympathize with the characters. This is not one of them.
This book deals with subjects such as bullying, suicide, friendships, relationships and is in the pov of a bully instead of the victim. "That's different", I thought. I was expecting this novel to be filled with personal growth, enlightenment, remorse, and compassion but this book had absolutely none of that!! A wet rag has more depth than this bound waste of paper! Plot holes, cardboard cut out characters, pointless dramatic scenes, no development at all be it character or plot, cringey dialogue! All telling no showing.
Let's start off with the characters. They're your typical high school clique. Brielle is the "Queen B", Sara (the protagonist) who is Brielle's side kick who doesn't have a mind of her own and will do and say whatever Brielle wants, Dylan/Jacob/Tyler who are the "cool guys" and love interests. I know Dylan plays some sport. I can't even remember what the other guys do. There's also a Kyle thrown in there, and a few random girls. Noelle becomes a pretty major character near the end, but she literally just pops up out of nowhere. I think she was dating Kyle before Emma stole him (they still hang out in the same friend group though. And apparently the guys trash talk Emma but still have no problem sleeping with her or supposedly at least. Everyone seems to think Emma is having sex with everyone but there's no evidence) Carmichael is the "bad boy with tattoos and black t-shirts" whom Sara develops a relationship with, despite her reservations because after all...she is a "cool girl". Lastly, there's Emma, the girl who committed suicide. These characters have no fucking depth WHATSOEVER! We don't get to know any of them! I finished the book not feeling any more connected with Sara than I did at the beginning.
The author introduced a few important plot devices that I thought would be big turning points, but they were never brought up and added absolutely nothing to the story! They are as follows:
1) We find out fairly early on that Brielle's bragging about losing her virginity to a hot older guy was a front (of course). It ended up not being nearly as romantic as she hoped and just "laid on top of her and did it" and that was that. She ends up having a major emotional breakdown in the car. I thought, "Great! This is where we are going to see the vunerable side of this typical mean girl! Here comes some depth." But nope! She wipes her eyes, drags her friend into VS to buy some underwear, and the whole situation is never resolved. It's never even brought up again.
2) Tommy, Sara's little brother, has been acting strange after summer camp, and the reader is left wondering why (it wasn't very hard to figure out though). Tommy and Sara sit down and have a talk. She finds out that Tommy was ridiculed at camp because his sister is a bully and she caused a girl to kill herself. Near the end, Sara is "concerned" because she glances out the car window after dropping Tommy off at school and she sees he's hanging out with a new friend named Liam who wears tough baggy clothes (????). She drives away and "tries not to worry about her brother". Again....Tommy's troubles are never brought up again....
Sara is the most annoying, whiny, and shallow character ever. Her whole reason for hating Emma and making her life a living hell is because she supposedly sleeps with everyone's boyfriend, including Sara's. When Sara finds Dylan making out with Emma at a party she gets so angry and her and Brielle devise all these ridiculous to try and get her transferred again. She wants Dylan back in the meantime because he's sooo perfect (even though he clearly cheated on her DURING A PARTY AT THE HOTEL WHERE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE "ROMANTIC SEX") But nope...it's all Emma's fault. Sure, she should not have hooked up with Dylan knowing that he was with Sara...but how the hell is Dylan the saint in all this?!?)
This book is the same damn thing over and over again. It switches from past and present, but it's all still the same. The past tense is in a span of 3 months. Sara and Brielle bully Emma relentlessly and pulls a bunch of mean pranks on her. She gets called a slut and skank on the daily and even has a fake facebook page made about her. Sara's inner monologue is pretty much just "IhateEmmashehasruinedmylifesheissuchaslutohnomaybeI'mtakingallofthistoofarbutthisisallBrielle'sideaanyway". The present tense is her going back and forth to her lawyer and therapist where she adamantly denies any wrongdoing on her part. It's all Emma's fault, she killed herself and woe is me! My boyfriend was stolen. There is absolutely no fucking accountability which I suppose is the point because that gives the character a chance to grow and mature. Sara finally does in like the last 5 pages but we have no idea how or when she "sees the light". We don't see her thought process or anything at all. It was all telling and no showing.
Don't expect to learn anything anything about Emma. I realize the book is in the perspective of the bully and we aren't meant to see anything in the point of view of the victim, but we learn nothing about her at all! All we know is she is supposedly promiscuous, sensitive, and goes to therapy. it doesn't get any deeper than that. Her suicide happens so abruptly. It's basically just stated in the book that she committed suicide and everyone blames all of a sudden blames Sara and the gang. That's it. Boom. It's done. If that's not bad enough, there were two (or three...can't remember because all the characters blend together) statutory rape accusations that basically got thrown out the window. The first one nothing came of it because why....we don't know (???? Emma got grounded but the guy gets off scot-free) and the latter because there wasn't enough evidence. Fair enough, but there was no lesson learned here, very much like the rest of the book.
I understand this book is about teens and the targeted audience is younger, but I read a ton of YA and just because it's "meant" for a younger audience doesn't mean it has to be watered down, shallow, underdeveloped garbage such as this. There is a lot of thought provoking teen books out there that allow you to sympathize with the characters. This is not one of them.