Format read: paperback
Genre: young adult romance
Release Date: Julyy 19th, 2011
Number of pages: 241 pages
Publisher: MTV books
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Purchasing Info: Goodreads, Author’s Website, Amazon, Book Depository (UK), Book Depository (US)

SHE’S WRITING ABOUT HIM. HE’S WRITING ABOUT HER. AND EVERYBODY IS READING BETWEEN THE LINES.

For Erin Blackwell, majoring in creative writing at the New York City college of her dreams is more than a chance to fulfil her ambitions – it’s her ticket away from the tragic memories that shadow her family’s racehorse farm in Kentucky. But when she refuses to major in business and take over the farm herself someday, her grandmother gives Erin’s college tuition and promised inheritance to their maddeningly handsome stable boy, Hunter Allen. Now Erin has to win an internship and work late nights at a local coffee shop to make her own dreams a reality. She should despise Hunter…so why does he sneak into her thoughts as the hero of her latest writing assignment?

Then, on the day she’s sharing that assignment with her class, Hunter walks in. He’s joining her class. And after he reads about himself in her story, her private fantasies about him must be painfully clear. She only hopes to persuade him not to reveal her secret to everyone else. But Hunter devises his own creative revenge, writing sexy stories that drive the whole class wild with curiosity and fill Erin’s heart with longing. Now she’s not just imagining what might have been. She’s writing a whole new ending for her romance with Hunter…except this story could come true.

My Thoughts:

What happened? I was expecting amazing, tear-jerking, beautiful things from this story, but was left with disappointment.

Erin is on her own now, her mother is dead, her father shot through and her grandmother disowned her after she refused to take over the family business. She is in New York, studying to become a romance author and make her own way in life. Until Hunter, the boy that her grandmother gave Erin’s inheritance to as punishment turns up in New York, enrolled in most of Erin’s classes.

Erin just didn’t do it for me. She was a petty, spoilt, stuck-up priss who also managed to be so stupid that I put this book down for days before I could bring myself to pick it up again. Erin was so busy dreaming herself to be a writer that she didn’t give a damn about anybody else around her, she used and manipulated people to get what she wanted – all the while fuming at her grandmother and Hunter for doing exactly the same thing.

I am speechless in regards to this book, after the masterful writing that was Going Too Far – a book I read two years ago and still think about to this day – the unique story that was Forget You, we get this.

The beautiful relationships that Echols has the gift of creating was missing here, there was no relationship, Erin spent all her time hating Hunter, then loving him, and being completely stupid about it in the process. She finds out Hunter is using her, the obvious answer must be to sleep with him. She finds out Hunter is using her grandmother, she applauds him. She finds out Hunter may or may not be sleeping with copious amounts of women, so she stalks him and all but ruins her future career in writing trying to get back at him. It was petty and frustrating.

Hunter and Erin’s relationship was a mess, and not in that beautiful romantic way that all comes together happily in the end, there was no build up, there was no foundation of deep seated feelings, Erin is a cow towards Hunter as a teenager, and continues being a cow towards him when she is supposedly a mature college student. Her excuse? “Well, he already hates me anyway, so why bother trying to fix it” and this chick wants to be a romance author?!

Not to mention the entire foundation of the pettiness that began this entire train-wreck, Erin must keep everyone from finding out that Hunter is her stable boy, and also the lead in her first story. Why?! What does it matter?!

The killer for me though was the first time Erin read a story by Hunter and said this:

“Even if the girl were me, the guy in the story isn’t Hunter. The guy in the story knows all about anatomy.”

What?! He wrote the story, if he wrote the story with anatomy in it, then how can he not know about anatomy?! *headdesk*

It was Erin’s complete stupidity that absolutely killed Love Story for me. By the time I got to the non-event of an ending which had I actually liked the book would have been yet another complete let down, I was just glad to be finished with it.

Echols has had me in tears before, tears of joy, tears of sadness, and now tears of frustration. I am honestly scared to read the next thing she comes out with. We had Going Too Far which was excellent, Forget You which wasn’t quite up to standard but still good, and now this. What on earth will be next?

About Amanda

Amanda-Lee is a proudly addicted reader and writer from Sydney. She lives with her wonderful husband and their more like a baby than a kitten Hamish. Amanda-Lee has been blogging for 4 years now and is a lover of all genres, though she does have a tendancy to stray towards the weird and wonderful concotions in the paranormal and fantasy genres. In addition to being the Winged Lover on BLI she also runs the book blog StoryWings.

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