Review: The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things by Ann Aguirre

March 23, 2015 2 stars, Book Review 9 ★★

Review: The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things by Ann AguirreThe Queen of Bright and Shiny Things by Ann Aguirre
Published by Feiwel & Friends on April 7, 2015
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 336
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
Goodreads

*This book was provided by the Publisher for review. No compensation was provided and all opinions are strictly my own.

Sage Czinski is trying really hard to be perfect. If she manages it, people won’t peer beyond the surface, or ask hard questions about her past. She’s learned to substitute causes for relationships, and it’s working just fine… until Shane Cavendish strolls into her math class. He’s a little antisocial, a lot beautiful, and everything she never knew she always wanted.

Shane Cavendish just wants to be left alone to play guitar and work on his music. He’s got heartbreak and loneliness in his rearview mirror, and this new school represents his last chance. He doesn’t expect to be happy; he only wants to graduate and move on. He never counted on a girl like Sage.

But love doesn’t mend all broken things, and sometimes life has to fall apart before it can be put back together again…

two-stars

By no means is The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things a terrible read, but due to the massive amounts of cheese and the difficulty of suspending my belief…this was not my cup of tea.

This is essentially about two teenagers who confide in one another about their troubling past and grow closer because of it. It’s not all that original and I think the main let-down for me is that it felt inauthentic. The dialogue, the characters, and even the story came off as something not only have I read before, but also felt like it was written by someone older catering to some predefined notion of what teenagers should be like. In other words, I felt like I was watching an ABC family show. At least with abc family they have some original ideas going on and I can really get into the drama, but the drama in this book fell flat on it’s face. To be frank, Sage was an annoying hippy-dippie chick with some overdone shadowed past and Shane was a soul-crunching loner musician who didn’t sound like a teenager at all.

The relationship between Sage and Shane at times were cute, I’ll admit, but then started really loading on the cheese factor. That, along with very awkward pacing made this a very unmemorable read.

I can recommend this to the younger crowd–definitely an only YA book without that much depth, but if you like cute contemporary romances, I say go for it.

Kat Stark

Kat Stark

Guest reviewer
Kat Stark

Latest posts by Kat Stark (see all)

Related Posts

9 Responses to “Review: The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things by Ann Aguirre”

  5. Mary @ BookSwarm

    I really like this author but…I don’t want to read cheese. Especially not ABC cheese. I adore her SciFi stories and her post-apocalyptics but…but…. Yeah. I have this one on my shelf but I’m quite reluctant to pick it up. I really don’t want to be disappointed!
    Mary @ BookSwarm recently posted…Comfort ReadsMy Profile