BOOK REVIEW: Stupid Boy by Cindy Miles

BOOK REVIEW: Stupid Boy by Cindy Miles

TKA Distribution
February 2015
eBook, $3.99

2/10

I had too much old, bitter baggage. I had that… thing inside of me that I wanted no one to ever see. Too much pain accompanied me. I was consumed with it. It’d never go away and I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.

Stupid Boy had so much potential. It could’ve been brilliant, if it hadn’t spiralled down into the typical New Adult template: broken girl meets broken but hot boy and, together, they ‘fix’ each other. The Goodreads summary says:

Brax Jenkins and Olivia Beaumont are the most envied couple at Winston University—but the so-called “virginity dare,” orchestrated by Brax’s old fraternity, almost tore them apart. Now, a new dare is taking shape, and it’s sure to set emotions ablaze–more than ever before.

Winston’s “It Girl” Harper Belle isn’t just president of the Deltas–she’s also a master at keeping her ugly past a secret. So, when the Kappas’ dare hits closer to home for her more than anyone realizes, she devises a competition of her own as payback. Three sorority sisters will seek out a notorious womanizer on campus and–unbeknownst their “mark”–secretly train him to be the perfect boyfriend. Always up for a challenge, Harper targets the biggest player she can find: Brax’s wickedly handsome foster brother Kane McCarthy.

Revenge? Dares? Sororities? Where do I sign? My inner demon jumped with excitement the moment I read those three words. If there’s one thing that I will read every time without fail it’s vengeful girls who take matters into their own hands. I love that stuff.

It was not meant to be. Only 10% of the book centred around the dare and Harper’s revenge for her sorority sisters. Only 10% was loved. The other 90 was lost amidst deep dark pasts, broken boys and girls and cute, longing-filled sickening dialogue that could give a perfectly healthy person diabetes. Not to mention that the love interest is a creepy stalker (but it’s okay, because he’s hot, right?), Harper’s best friend is every single British stereotype mashed together (she continuously uses words like “love,” “bloomers,” “mayhap,” “bugger me,” which would be endearing if they weren’t so completely over the top and overused) and the reader is constantly forced to feel “pity” and “sorrow” for these two poor broken characters.

The pitying aspects of Harper’s and Kane’s personalities and lives were grating and annoying, trying to tell the reader how to feel. Every single page, we’re reminded about how awful Harper’s past is, how deep Kane’s emotional and physical scars run. There is no depth to the characters, no distinguishing personalities; making it difficult, sometimes, to tell the two points-of-view apart.

The New Adult genre has an iffy reputation and a lot of readers — me included — are required to weed through the bad to get to the good. One of the reasons is that the stories are all very samey, following the same template to the T, never being ‘daring’ enough. I was excited to start Stupid Boy after enjoying the first novel in the series, Stupid Girl. I expected the same snark, the same loveable but difficult characters. Unfortunately, there are more template-following books than good ones in New Adult. I fell in love with Leah Raeder’s Unteachable, cried and laughed with the characters from Colleen Hoover’s Maybe Someday and adored Cindy Miles’  Stupid Girl, but Stupid Boy just wasn’t for me.

(Stupid Boy is the second book in the Stupid Love series.)

Category: Book Reviews, Other Reviews