Release Date: July 29, 2013
Publisher: Flirt (Random House)
Pages: 233
Series: n/a
Review Source: Netgalley
Synopsis: (from Goodreads)My Thoughts:
Rising star Cassie Mae introduces New Adult readers to a practical soon-to-be college freshman who seems to have everything—until a special guy shows her what she’s been missing.
In the wealthy town of Sundale, Kelli Pinkins has hatched the perfect plan to capitalize on her sweet reputation. For a generous fee, she will be every trust-fund baby’s dream: a Friday-night alibi, the “girlfriend” or “BFF” that parents dream about. With college approaching in the fall, Kelli’s services are in demand more than ever, which means that her social life is nonexistent. But Kelli is A-okay with that. She’s raking in cash for school. Besides, relationships are tricky, and sometimes very messy. She’d rather be at home on Xbox LIVE, anyway. Then the unexpected happens: She meets college stud Chase Maroney.
Chase isn’t like the preppy, privileged guys Kelli usually meets in Sundale. For starters, he’s twentysomething, always wears black., and he shoots back one-liners as fast as she can dish them out. But Kelli’s attempts to drive Chase away falter when she realizes that he treats her like he really knows her, like he cares about knowing her. When Kelli finally gives in to the delicious kiss she’s been fighting for so long, she faces a tough decision: make Chase a real-life boyfriend and risk her heart . . . or keep her clients and lose her first true love.
‘Friday Night Alibi’ was a very cute book, and it ended up being something I enjoyed. I had kind of a rough start with the book because I wasn't enjoying the voice at all. Kelli seemed very immature, especially for someone who had graduated high school early, and Chase was immature as well. Neither seemed particularly likeable, which made me regret requesting the book for review. Then both characters started coming into their own, beginning to grow up, and with that my like of the book increased dramatically.
What I really liked about ‘Friday Night Alibi’ is that both characters had different insecurities. It was nice to see a love interest who wasn't physically perfect, and I liked how they were both inexperienced with the opposite sex. In regards to content this book was was relatively clean (minus some hot makeout scenes), proving you can write a New Adult book without sex.
Interestingly, regarding this book’s label of “New Adult” I’m not sure whether anything in it really makes the NA label necessary. It definitely felt very YA to me, and I don’t mean that as a bad thing. Kelli might be done high school, and Chase might be a bit older, but the self-identity and family issues that constitute the majority of the book felt far more YA than NA to me. Whatever the label, ‘Friday Night Alibi’ was a fun book that I ended up enjoying despite the difficult start.
The Cover:
Like.
Rating:
[3/5]Find Friday Night Alibi by Cassie Mae on Goodreads & Amazon. Other purchase links.
From what you said, it does sound more YA than NA to me, too. But that label gets overused because it's popular at the moment -- maybe that's why it was put in that category. I can see this as a cute read, though!
ReplyDeleteI'm still not really onboard with the New Adult category...I guess I really do need to read a couple NA books to get more of a sense of them.
ReplyDelete