Reviews: Love Like Crazy and Hollywood is Like High School with Money

Love Like Crazy by Megan Squires
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary
Published by CreateSpace on October 14th 2014
Format: eBook (362 pages) • Source: Borrowed
Goodreads • Amazon • Barnes & Noble

Relationships. Love. Life.

All things that can be considered-and oftentimes are-just a bit crazy.

With an alcoholic father and an absentee mother, seventeen-year old Eppie Aberdeen has learned firsthand that life's circumstances aren't always sunshine and roses.

So Eppie doesn't expect the fairytale, because reality certainly isn't one. She's not waiting on the handsome prince with his white horse to come to her rescue. But even though she's not waiting on it, that doesn't stop nineteen-year-old Lincoln Ross from driving straight into her heart with his teal and white campervan and his too tall stature and perpetually goofy grin. It's difficult to believe in a happily ever after when a happy now is quite hard to find. But Lincoln gives Eppie hope that despite the odds, a true and unconditional love might actually be out there. A revised fairytale. A new kind of love story.

But then again, that might just be plain crazy.

I saw this book pop up on Amazon when I wasn’t sure what to read and decided to use the Prime eBook borrowing feature. I didn’t look at the Goodreads page or ratings or anything – I just jumped in and started the book. I’ve been wanting to challenge myself to do more of that kind of thing. I follow GR and my fellow bloggers a bit too much sometimes. Did my little risk pay off? Not really.

I’ve never read a book with such inconsistent dialogue. One minute, I’m rolling my eyes at the cheesiness. The next, I’m swooning or laughing or smiling to myself. I don’t know how it’s possible. It’s like half of the book is trying too hard to be John green, and the other half is perfect at being itself. I was able to handle it for most of the book, but towards the end it really started to wear on me.

One of the biggest things that bugged me was the instalove. I don’t use that term as often as some, but this was instalove in the purest form. They knew each other for about a day or two when Eppie was thinking she wanted to spend forever with Lincoln. Like, that’s a bit quick for me. The cheese factor started too early as a result of that. Things like “every inch of you is artwork” don’t make me swoon; they make me roll my eyes.

When her friend Sam starts seeing Dan, Lincoln’s friend who lost his legs in war, I was pleasantly surprised. I hate to say that because I wish that kind of thing wasn’t a surprise to me. She knew he didn’t have legs and was so excited to meet him to see what would happen. I loved that she didn’t hesitate at all because of that one factor; a lot of people would.

The major climax of the story, where we finally learn the history of Eppie and her mom, was really intriguing and unique. I’ve definitely never read anything like that before, so major points for making a unique contemporary YA. That carried through until the ending; I was shocked by some of that too. It definitely got a bit crazier than necessary towards the end.

Overall, I feel like this book would have been a lot more successful if it were 50-100 pages shorter. So much dragged on towards the end. There was an entire chapter about them attempting to kiss underwater and planning the logistics. By the time I reached 75%, I was so tired of the sickeningly lovey-dovey dialogue that I skimmed most of the ending. This isn’t a bad book but it’s one I probably should have skipped.

Hollywood is Like High School With Money by Zoey Dean
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary
Published by Hachette on July 23rd 2009
Format: Paperback (288 pages) • Source: Purchased
Goodreads • Amazon • Barnes & Noble

Twenty-four-year old Taylor Henning has just landed her dream job as an assistant at a major movie studio. But when her catty coworkers trick her into almost getting fired, she realizes that the old saying "Hollywood is like school with money" just may be true. The thing is, Taylor wasn't exactly a social butterfly in high school-how is she supposed to do any better the second time around?

That's when she meets her boss's popular sixteen-year-old daughter Quinn, and has an epiphany: maybe this teenager can teach her how to use her queen bee tactics to succeed in the Hollywood popularity contest. Quinn comes up with a plan to teach Taylor one lesson a week-everything from "Fake it 'til you make it" to "It's *never* your fault"--and soon Taylor finds herself winning the war against rival assistant Kylie. Until, that is, she's directed to steal Kylie's boyfriend, and something happens that's not in the game plan: Taylor falls for the guy. Now she must do the impossible-- harness her inner mean girl while staying true to herself.

Zoey Dean was one of my favorites back in the day, when I was an actual young adult. Sometimes I feel nostalgic for all of those books I read in high school. I was all about the long-ass book series about rich girls being bitches or boarding school or Hollywood. Her series The A-List was definitely enjoyable for me at the time. I’m honestly not sure how I’d feel about it now, but I am now kind of itching for a reread…

Anyways, I was feeling nostalgic when I saw this book for only $4 on Amazon for a paperback. I decided to read it right when it came in, because I wasn’t really in the mood for any other kind of book. I wanted something relatively fun and mindless. This book totally hit the mark for me at the time! And it made me feel doubly nostalgic.

Taylor moves out to LA after growing up in Ohio and attending college in Connecticut. She lands a great entry-level job at a production company and is thrown right into the Hollywood scene. With the help of her boss’s daughter, she tries to take down her coworker (who is a bitch to her most of the time) and get a solid promotion. Of course, not everything goes according to plan and Operation-Put-Kylie-in-her-Place blows up in her face in a few ways.

I won’t spoil the terrible lengths she goes through, but they were pretty bad. It’s interesting because I’ve noticed some of the books I used to love kind of have a “reverse” character growth for awhile. Instead of the character starting out one way and ending up (better) another way, they start out nice, become mean, and then become nice again. That was definitely the case with this book. I didn’t like Taylor much once the book got rolling and she got wrapped up in her bitchy plot. However, I knew the lesson and the growth would come around towards the end.

Aside from all that stuff, I liked the book a lot. It was such a quick and easy read. I started it on a Sunday night in between football games and finished it up Monday morning when I woke up.

Oddly, despite really enjoying this book, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to other readers. Unless you’re someone like me who used to really enjoy these types of books, I can’t imagine you’d enjoy it too much. The main character uses some deplorable tactics; I’m not sure how well they’d go over based on what people like to read in 2015. I know my tastes have mostly changed, but I’ll always have a soft spot for books like this. Also, stay tuned for an upcoming post about book nostalgia (that this book inspired me for!).

Related Posts