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mamamelreads 's review for:
Take Me On
by Katie McGarry
Meh. This is one of those it's-not-you-it's-me sort of reviews. There will be quite a few who love this book. It has all of those elements that made the first three books in this series enjoyable, but for me this one just fell completely flat. Totally and completely flat. Why?
Oh my gosh ... the angst!!! So much teenage angst! Holy cow! I was so sick of listening to West and Haley complaining about their rotten lives. I'm not exactly sure what it was about this story that set me off. There was plenty of angst in the previous books of this series. All the characters had messed up lives in one way or another. But for some reason in this book it just put me on edge. It was so horribly irritating. Maybe this was all me, and maybe I am just done reading YA books with these sorts of story lines. I don't know. All I know is that Haley and West's constant narration of their misfortunes took up entirely too much of the book. I think that the problem may have been that Katie McGarry took way too much time having the characters knock me over the head explaining how horrible life was. I would have preferred a shorter book where I as a reader got the chance to make that conclusion for myself. Too many times I just wanted to yell at these two to stop crying about their problems and DO something about them. TALK to each other. TALK to SOMEBODY. Erg!
But that wasn't all. The amount of testosterone floating around this story was stifling. Good grief! Every single time two males got within ten feet of one another it was as if they needed to pee a ring around the area marking their territory. Every single time any man came near another man fists were in danger of flying. Every. Single. Time. Maybe I am completely naive about these things, but are there really young men who are so entirely driven to fight every single moment of the day out there roaming the halls of the schools? Yes. I know there are guys (and girls) who are fighters ... but every single encounter of their lives? Really? Whether these testosterone amped guys exist or not ... it got so incredibly old reading about these neanderthals constantly threatening each other. I kept wanting to break out the guitar and sing a good rendition of "Give Peace a Chance" in every scene. Too much anger. Too much posturing. Too much.
There were some parts of the book where I felt like the characters were maybe talking a bit too metaphorically for someone in this age group. There were things that probably sounded great in an author's head as it was put on the page, but in a real life situation would come out sounding totally hokey. West, in particular, had a few spots in the book where he started waxing on poetically, and I just had to roll me eyes because the words did not come across as authentic to his voice.
Still ... the writing in this is good ... not as good as the first three books, but good. I think that Katie McGarry has probably overdone the troubled youth theme in these stories, but that's a theme that just keeps on giving, so I'm sure this won't be the last group of troubled youth to show up in a McGarry novel. If you are a reader who is not tired of this theme then I think that you will still find some things to love in these stories. They are stories about kids in bad circumstances finding a way to overcome the hardships life has handed to them. This book was not for me at all, but big fans of the series will probably still find things to love about it. I can only give this one two stars ... it was okay.
Oh my gosh ... the angst!!! So much teenage angst! Holy cow! I was so sick of listening to West and Haley complaining about their rotten lives. I'm not exactly sure what it was about this story that set me off. There was plenty of angst in the previous books of this series. All the characters had messed up lives in one way or another. But for some reason in this book it just put me on edge. It was so horribly irritating. Maybe this was all me, and maybe I am just done reading YA books with these sorts of story lines. I don't know. All I know is that Haley and West's constant narration of their misfortunes took up entirely too much of the book. I think that the problem may have been that Katie McGarry took way too much time having the characters knock me over the head explaining how horrible life was. I would have preferred a shorter book where I as a reader got the chance to make that conclusion for myself. Too many times I just wanted to yell at these two to stop crying about their problems and DO something about them. TALK to each other. TALK to SOMEBODY. Erg!
But that wasn't all. The amount of testosterone floating around this story was stifling. Good grief! Every single time two males got within ten feet of one another it was as if they needed to pee a ring around the area marking their territory. Every single time any man came near another man fists were in danger of flying. Every. Single. Time. Maybe I am completely naive about these things, but are there really young men who are so entirely driven to fight every single moment of the day out there roaming the halls of the schools? Yes. I know there are guys (and girls) who are fighters ... but every single encounter of their lives? Really? Whether these testosterone amped guys exist or not ... it got so incredibly old reading about these neanderthals constantly threatening each other. I kept wanting to break out the guitar and sing a good rendition of "Give Peace a Chance" in every scene. Too much anger. Too much posturing. Too much.
There were some parts of the book where I felt like the characters were maybe talking a bit too metaphorically for someone in this age group. There were things that probably sounded great in an author's head as it was put on the page, but in a real life situation would come out sounding totally hokey. West, in particular, had a few spots in the book where he started waxing on poetically, and I just had to roll me eyes because the words did not come across as authentic to his voice.
Still ... the writing in this is good ... not as good as the first three books, but good. I think that Katie McGarry has probably overdone the troubled youth theme in these stories, but that's a theme that just keeps on giving, so I'm sure this won't be the last group of troubled youth to show up in a McGarry novel. If you are a reader who is not tired of this theme then I think that you will still find some things to love in these stories. They are stories about kids in bad circumstances finding a way to overcome the hardships life has handed to them. This book was not for me at all, but big fans of the series will probably still find things to love about it. I can only give this one two stars ... it was okay.