Thursday, March 8, 2012

Perfect Chemistry


I mean, look at the cover. It totally looks like a
soap opera, doesn't it? Well, honestly, it kind of
was.
A fresh, urban twist on the classic tale of star-crossed lovers.

When Brittany Ellis walks into chemistry class on the first day of senior year, she has no clue that her carefully created 'perfect' life is about to unravel before her eyes. She's forced to be lab partners with Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, and he is about to threaten everything she's worked so hard for: her flawless reputation, her relationship with her boyfriend, and the secret that her home life is anything but perfect.

Alex is a bad boy and he knows it. So when he makes a bet with his friends to lure Brittany into his life, he thinks nothing of it. But soon Alex realizes Brittany is a real person with real problems, and suddenly the bet he made in arrogance turns into something much more.

In a passionate story about looking beneath the surface, Simone Elkeles breaks through the stereotypes and barriers that threaten to keep Brittany and Alex apart.


After reading “Beautiful Disaster“ I couldn’t get it out of my head and so I did some research in goodreads about similar books. There were loads of recommendations and I picked a few. At first I read the first book of Simone Elkeles’ trilogy about three brothers (each book concentrates on a different one) called “Perfect Chemimstry“.

Let’s put it this way. The story was similar, but I wasn’t sattisfied at all. It was just.. I don’t even have the words to describe it. Alex’s from Mexico or something and troughout the book he’s living with his mom and two younger brothers. In USA. He’s in somekind of a gang and if he wants to leave, he has to pay with his life. He’s poor. Brittany, on the other hand, is the best student of the class, beautiful and is dating the most popular guy in school. Moreover, she’s the cocaptain of the cheerleading squad. But.. Brittany’s life isn’t so glorious as it seems: her sister’s disabled, basically not able to speak and retarded; her mom’s got some kind of an anxiety disorder and her dad comes home just to sliip in his bed. Alex and Brittany are forced to work on a chemistry project and the boy makes a bet that he can get her physically and.. they fall in love. That’s basically it.

All those chickitas and other Spanish expressions made me feel like I was watching a version of “Bring It On“ starring Christina Milian or some kind of a Latin-American soap opera. Maybe it’s my European and north origin, but all of those expressions just sounded too cheesy and fake. I couldn’t even concentrate on the story, it bothered me that much. I would not recommend this book if you do not like soap operas and actually, it wouldn’t have bothered me that much if it would’ve been more educating on the cultural side, but it wasn’t, so, yeah. Didn’t like it.

I’m 99% sure I’ll not read neither of the following books, only when I’m bored to death (literally).

Rate: 1/5.

Reading order:
  1. “Perfect Chemistry“
  2. “Rules of Attraction“
  3. “Chain Reaction“

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for your honest review. I had read good reviews about this series and just picked up Perfect Chemistry from the library sale rack for $.50. So if I end up not liking it, no great loss.

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