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thefox22 's review for:
Unteachable
by Elliot Wake
*eARC kindly provided by Atria via NetGalley*
*Review can be found on The Fox's Hideaway.
My Review!
*Spoilers. Fair warning.
So, a little confession: teacher/student relationships creep me out, no matter the ages, circumstances, or how they end. The only reason I read this was because I loved Black Iris, and Leah Raeder's writing is wonderful. I wanted to see how she handled a situation like this one. But I was NOT happy with it at all.
I am so goddamn disappointed with this book. To me, Unteachable was an unrealistic and romanticized student/teacher relationship that ended with no consequences with either of the parties like it should have. Not that it needed to for the story, per se, but when they're together, they're constantly thinking of all the reasons it's wrong and how they need to be careful. And so, there should have been this element of danger and forbiddenness, but there wasn't. They basically spent like 10% of the book actually in the school fooling around and the other 90% everywhere else. There was always this sense of foreboding, that they'd get caught and the consequences would be grave. But nothing happened to them. NOTHING. There was a bit of blackmail from another student that resulted in a little drama that actually flows into Black Iris. But it wasn't this huge big ginormous deal because it was pointless. There was never any real threat.
Oh, maybe I should talk about the characters. Well, I couldn't connect with Maise at all. At many points, I did feel for her and what she was going through. She was more mature for her age, felt like a thirty year old stuck in a teenager's body. She'd had to take care of herself since she was a little girl because her mother is a prostitute and a drug addict, and her father skipped out on them when she was a kid (hence the issues with boys). She had no parent figures, no guidance, no love or support. She was lonely, razor-edged, and closed off. And of course it would take this ONE guy to heal her. A guy she shouldn't have or even want.
I'm not gonna lie, I had liked Evan in the beginning. But he was cagey. He was very evasive about his past and his life and why he had taken the teaching job at her high school. We don't find out much about his past, and all we see is this good guy who takes care of Maise and only wants what's best for her. But he was honestly creepy, and it wasn't just because of the age difference. And it's all the more apparent when we find out what happened before he came to this high school. It just upped the ick factor tenfold, and I cannot in good conscience not see how the author didn't use that to make Maise open up her eyes about this guy. Why was it just brushed over? Why did it not make her want to run in the opposite direction? Why, why, why? I got no answers, which really pissed me off.
I could have gotten behind this romance, if I had actually felt a connection between the two main characters. If I'd had this sense that they were soulmates who shared a profoundly deep bond. But I just didn't believe it with them. This felt extremely insta-lovey, and all they did was basically have sex. They did talk too, but we never actually got to hear any of those conversations unless they pertained to Maise's life. Not to mention the ick factor of this. Sure, Maise is 18, which technically makes it legal (and that is a really nice excuse, is it not). But Evan is THIRTY-TWO! I'm sorry, but I just can't get behind this relationship. Not just because of the age factor, which is a strong reason, but because I believed that they weren't good for each other. Evan was sort of creepy, and he wouldn't share his past with her. And Maise might have been more mature for her age, but he was still taking advantage of her vulnerability. He was emotionally and mentally more stable than she was, even if he had a fucked up past like her. (But he really didn't because it wasn't a factor in his nonexistent character development, and there was basically no sense in bringing up his "hard" life experiences at all). And she might have been having sex already, but that didn't mean she was ready for a guy this mature and at such a different life stage than her.
The worst part, though, was the ending! All throughout the story, I was convinced it was going to end with them going their separate ways. That they'd say goodbye and look back on this as a lesson they were taught or whatever. Not to mention, like I said above, Evan was portrayed as this guy who put Maise's needs above his own, a selfless man who only wants what's best for her. And every single page leading up the end, he kept pushing her away and saying that she needed to leave and go live her own life and follow her dreams. That he wanted her to do that because she was so young and with so much ahead of her. So that basically meant nothing since he showed up in the plane seat next to her, in this really cheesy ending to a book that didn't seem to have a point to it. Also, the whole Casablanca thing was setting us up for that goodbye-never-to-see-each-other-again ending, but apparently that didn't mean anything.
The secondary relationships were all surface, and everything with them ended too perfectly. That was another unrealistic point of this book. Unteachable was basically about Maise and her addiction to a guy who is forbidden, and the amount of sex that they have and the fact that they get to have their happily ever after without any consequences. I went into this with an open mind and I am sorely disappointed that it didn't handle the teacher/student relationship well at all.
*Review can be found on The Fox's Hideaway.
My Review!
*Spoilers. Fair warning.
So, a little confession: teacher/student relationships creep me out, no matter the ages, circumstances, or how they end. The only reason I read this was because I loved Black Iris, and Leah Raeder's writing is wonderful. I wanted to see how she handled a situation like this one. But I was NOT happy with it at all.
I am so goddamn disappointed with this book. To me, Unteachable was an unrealistic and romanticized student/teacher relationship that ended with no consequences with either of the parties like it should have. Not that it needed to for the story, per se, but when they're together, they're constantly thinking of all the reasons it's wrong and how they need to be careful. And so, there should have been this element of danger and forbiddenness, but there wasn't. They basically spent like 10% of the book actually in the school fooling around and the other 90% everywhere else. There was always this sense of foreboding, that they'd get caught and the consequences would be grave. But nothing happened to them. NOTHING. There was a bit of blackmail from another student that resulted in a little drama that actually flows into Black Iris. But it wasn't this huge big ginormous deal because it was pointless. There was never any real threat.
Oh, maybe I should talk about the characters. Well, I couldn't connect with Maise at all. At many points, I did feel for her and what she was going through. She was more mature for her age, felt like a thirty year old stuck in a teenager's body. She'd had to take care of herself since she was a little girl because her mother is a prostitute and a drug addict, and her father skipped out on them when she was a kid (hence the issues with boys). She had no parent figures, no guidance, no love or support. She was lonely, razor-edged, and closed off. And of course it would take this ONE guy to heal her. A guy she shouldn't have or even want.
I'm not gonna lie, I had liked Evan in the beginning. But he was cagey. He was very evasive about his past and his life and why he had taken the teaching job at her high school. We don't find out much about his past, and all we see is this good guy who takes care of Maise and only wants what's best for her. But he was honestly creepy, and it wasn't just because of the age difference. And it's all the more apparent when we find out what happened before he came to this high school. It just upped the ick factor tenfold, and I cannot in good conscience not see how the author didn't use that to make Maise open up her eyes about this guy. Why was it just brushed over? Why did it not make her want to run in the opposite direction? Why, why, why? I got no answers, which really pissed me off.
I could have gotten behind this romance, if I had actually felt a connection between the two main characters. If I'd had this sense that they were soulmates who shared a profoundly deep bond. But I just didn't believe it with them. This felt extremely insta-lovey, and all they did was basically have sex. They did talk too, but we never actually got to hear any of those conversations unless they pertained to Maise's life. Not to mention the ick factor of this. Sure, Maise is 18, which technically makes it legal (and that is a really nice excuse, is it not). But Evan is THIRTY-TWO! I'm sorry, but I just can't get behind this relationship. Not just because of the age factor, which is a strong reason, but because I believed that they weren't good for each other. Evan was sort of creepy, and he wouldn't share his past with her. And Maise might have been more mature for her age, but he was still taking advantage of her vulnerability. He was emotionally and mentally more stable than she was, even if he had a fucked up past like her. (But he really didn't because it wasn't a factor in his nonexistent character development, and there was basically no sense in bringing up his "hard" life experiences at all). And she might have been having sex already, but that didn't mean she was ready for a guy this mature and at such a different life stage than her.
The worst part, though, was the ending! All throughout the story, I was convinced it was going to end with them going their separate ways. That they'd say goodbye and look back on this as a lesson they were taught or whatever. Not to mention, like I said above, Evan was portrayed as this guy who put Maise's needs above his own, a selfless man who only wants what's best for her. And every single page leading up the end, he kept pushing her away and saying that she needed to leave and go live her own life and follow her dreams. That he wanted her to do that because she was so young and with so much ahead of her. So that basically meant nothing since he showed up in the plane seat next to her, in this really cheesy ending to a book that didn't seem to have a point to it. Also, the whole Casablanca thing was setting us up for that goodbye-never-to-see-each-other-again ending, but apparently that didn't mean anything.
The secondary relationships were all surface, and everything with them ended too perfectly. That was another unrealistic point of this book. Unteachable was basically about Maise and her addiction to a guy who is forbidden, and the amount of sex that they have and the fact that they get to have their happily ever after without any consequences. I went into this with an open mind and I am sorely disappointed that it didn't handle the teacher/student relationship well at all.