Romancing the Nerd (Nerd #2)
Romancing the Nerd (Nerd #2) by Leah Rea Miller
Blurb:
Dan Garrett has become exactly what he hates–popular. Until recently, he was just another live-action role-playing nerd on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Cue a massive growth spurt and an uncanny skill at taking three-point shots in basketball and voila…Mr. Popular. It’s definitely weird.
And the biggest drawback? Going from high school zero to basketball hero cost Dan the secret girl of his dorky dreams.
A tuba-playing nerd with an eclectic fashion sense, Zelda Potts’s “coolness” stat is about minus forty-two. Dan turning his back on her and the rest of nerd-dom was brutal enough, but when he humiliates her at school, Zelda decides it’s time for a little revenge—dork style. Nevermind that she used to have a crush on him. Nevermind that her plan could backfire big time.
It’s time to roll the dice…and hope like freakin’ hell she doesn’t lose her heart in the process.
And the biggest drawback? Going from high school zero to basketball hero cost Dan the secret girl of his dorky dreams.
A tuba-playing nerd with an eclectic fashion sense, Zelda Potts’s “coolness” stat is about minus forty-two. Dan turning his back on her and the rest of nerd-dom was brutal enough, but when he humiliates her at school, Zelda decides it’s time for a little revenge—dork style. Nevermind that she used to have a crush on him. Nevermind that her plan could backfire big time.
It’s time to roll the dice…and hope like freakin’ hell she doesn’t lose her heart in the process.
Review:
I hold my crossed fingers up and interrupt him. "Dude, can we get on with it? Your third year creative writing class is doing wonders for your descriptive prose, but I'm ready to smash some skulls."
Tommy sighs and flips past one, two, three of the notecards he was reading from. The dude must really be digging those writing classes.
I'm somewhat torn on this one. For one, I didn't think it was as funny/cute as I remember the first book being, to be completely honest, I actually found it rather tedious at times. But, nevertheless, it was a sweet story and it did pass the time nicely. I mostly read it before going to sleep and it was a nice note to fall asleep to. I guess what I want to say is that it wasn't anything special and I don't have any exciting feelings to share about it.
The one thing that actually annoyed me at times was how morals were squeezed into the book. Don't get me wrong, there is something beautiful about a book that can teach you how to be kind and treat your peers well and this book tries to be that but, frankly, it fails at actually doing so mostly because the two main characters are very judgemental people. This get's somewhat better near the end like when Dan finds out that one of the guys in the 'popular crowd' at school actually isn't such a bad guy but has never learnt that your words actually hurt people (? how he has never even considered this is an entirely different dilemma) and Dan is all like "woah, popular people are aware of feelings, too, and they can learn, too, they just never considered this and I had to teach them???!!" so one could think that he would be aware of this the next time one of the popular guys does something stupid but when exactly that happens the other guy suddenly gets demonized and is evil incarnate. Sure, neither of the guys was nice, like, ever in the story but if Miller wanted to introduce the "everyone has redeemable characteristics and maybe we just need to give each other a chance" discourse she should have done it right and it should apply to all. A similar thing happens with Zelda who in the end even introduces this big school-healing kind of ritual-pep-rally-thing (it's about as weird and out of place in the story as it sounds) but she'll still judge people simply on principal.
Further, a lot of the characters are just reallly superficial. Well, basically, everyone but maybe Dan and Zelda are really superficial characters. Not in a "one of their character traits is superficiality" but in a "they are not fleshed out, at all" way. Zelda's best friend, Beth, is hardly more than a Zelda-cheerleader ("oh, you're so pretty, oh, you're awesome, oh, you should feel bad about yourself because of something potentially mean you've done") that is used as an excuse to further the plot once (when she wanted to go to a party, apparently). Logan, Logan's family, and Maddie are cute little characters on the outskirts of the story but either only appear one or twice (Logan's family) or mostly as a device to introduce more cuteness (Logan and Maddie), their characters never actually portraying anything but positive and we're-very-much-in-love vibes. The list goes on. Not even Dan's father's character arc, which would have been somewhat important, is explored to fruition, meaning that I was quite confused by the way he changed his behaviour so very suddenly.
All that being said, there were only a few moments when I actually noticed these things or, in case of the characters, it was mostly something I realized when I read for a more prolonged period of time. Mostly, though, I thought this was a rather pleasant story, if not very interesting and extremely predictable. I could have guessed at the entire plot within the first ten pages and I'd have gotten everything right. This isn't bad but it also isn't particularly interesting.
As I said, I feel kind of torn but also the book simply didn't offer that much and I ended up being rather neutral about it. Maybe you think differently but if you've ever come in contact with ya-romance plots (not just in books but also movies etc.) you'll know what you'll be getting from this one very, very quickly.
The one thing that actually annoyed me at times was how morals were squeezed into the book. Don't get me wrong, there is something beautiful about a book that can teach you how to be kind and treat your peers well and this book tries to be that but, frankly, it fails at actually doing so mostly because the two main characters are very judgemental people. This get's somewhat better near the end like when Dan finds out that one of the guys in the 'popular crowd' at school actually isn't such a bad guy but has never learnt that your words actually hurt people (? how he has never even considered this is an entirely different dilemma) and Dan is all like "woah, popular people are aware of feelings, too, and they can learn, too, they just never considered this and I had to teach them???!!" so one could think that he would be aware of this the next time one of the popular guys does something stupid but when exactly that happens the other guy suddenly gets demonized and is evil incarnate. Sure, neither of the guys was nice, like, ever in the story but if Miller wanted to introduce the "everyone has redeemable characteristics and maybe we just need to give each other a chance" discourse she should have done it right and it should apply to all. A similar thing happens with Zelda who in the end even introduces this big school-healing kind of ritual-pep-rally-thing (it's about as weird and out of place in the story as it sounds) but she'll still judge people simply on principal.
Further, a lot of the characters are just reallly superficial. Well, basically, everyone but maybe Dan and Zelda are really superficial characters. Not in a "one of their character traits is superficiality" but in a "they are not fleshed out, at all" way. Zelda's best friend, Beth, is hardly more than a Zelda-cheerleader ("oh, you're so pretty, oh, you're awesome, oh, you should feel bad about yourself because of something potentially mean you've done") that is used as an excuse to further the plot once (when she wanted to go to a party, apparently). Logan, Logan's family, and Maddie are cute little characters on the outskirts of the story but either only appear one or twice (Logan's family) or mostly as a device to introduce more cuteness (Logan and Maddie), their characters never actually portraying anything but positive and we're-very-much-in-love vibes. The list goes on. Not even Dan's father's character arc, which would have been somewhat important, is explored to fruition, meaning that I was quite confused by the way he changed his behaviour so very suddenly.
All that being said, there were only a few moments when I actually noticed these things or, in case of the characters, it was mostly something I realized when I read for a more prolonged period of time. Mostly, though, I thought this was a rather pleasant story, if not very interesting and extremely predictable. I could have guessed at the entire plot within the first ten pages and I'd have gotten everything right. This isn't bad but it also isn't particularly interesting.
As I said, I feel kind of torn but also the book simply didn't offer that much and I ended up being rather neutral about it. Maybe you think differently but if you've ever come in contact with ya-romance plots (not just in books but also movies etc.) you'll know what you'll be getting from this one very, very quickly.
I giggle a little at that, then firmly cut it out. No giggling. He is not funny. He is stupid and hypocritical, Zelda. Never identify with the bad guy. Unless it's Loki from Thor. Then identify the pants off of him.
Rating:
As I've mentioned before, I ended up on a very neutral note with this book. Therefore, I'm giving it 2.5 out of 3 stars. It wasn't bad, honestly, but it also wasn't necessarily something I see a lot of value in, especially seeing as its predecessor already had almost the same plot.
Details:
Name: Romancing the Nerd
Series: Nerd
Author: Leah Rae Miller
Previous Books in this Series: Flirt mit Nerd (#1)
Publisher: Entangled
Pages: 288
Where?: Amazon
Comments
Post a Comment