Lisette C. (robin-titan) reviewed on 4/30/2009 + 34 more book reviews

Rating: 3.6/5
Age R: 13+
Release Date: May 5
Thoughts:
So Not Happening is about 16 year old Bella Kirkwood who's mom gets married to a guy she barely knows, Jacob Ralph Finley. Unfortunately the "fun" doesn't stop there, she is forced to leave her home sweet home in NYC and move to Oklahoma. This is something Bella absolutely hates! She does not want to live in a place where people can't tell the difference between "Payless shoes and Prada." Besides that, she now has two new step brothers, one of which seems unberable!
Bella at first seems to be fitting in at her new high school but then she does something that gets everyone to hate her. For that part in the book, a LOT of people can relate because for a while she's a complete outcast. My heart went out to her there even if she somewhat deserved it. Because of her mistake she ends up stuck working with the editor of the school newspaper, a guy that is just not nice! Something fishy seems to be happening with the football players and it's up to her and the editor, Luke, to find out what it is before people get hurt (actually, before more people get hurt).
This book was pretty cool, I enjoyed reading it, but I didn't love it. The writing, story, characters and suspense kept my interest but there were some things I just did not like.
When you get to a point in chapter three it's as if the Bella changes completely. You already get that she's a brat but it becomes more emphasized really fast and it seems like she becomes a completely different person, which is weird. I get what the author was trying to do, but it just wasn't done well.
I had a huge issue with the fact that most of this story is almost exactly the same as this episode of Smallville where there is something fishy going on with the football players since the coach is a nut job. Oh and there's this dream Bella has that is very similar to the scene with the fire in that episode. Obviously the author's a fan because the guy's last name is Sullivan who's an editor (remember Chloe Sullivan anyone?), he looks like Tom Welling, there are references to Smallville, and the little boy's almost always dressed as Superman. On the other hand the author does a nice twist to the story so that's pretty cool and cute. :)
I also wasn't really a huge fan of the protagonist, Bella. She was just such a brat!! Her personality just kept getting on my dang nerves! Even when her life is threatened, she still acts like a brat, it really irked me. Another thing that just made me angry with her was that she is so superficial. A girl from her school, Linda, asks her to help her get a guy to like her and guess what Bella does? She completely tries to change the girl and turn her into a brat too. Basically Bella thinks that there's no way the guy would like Linda for who she is, as if she has too change her hair color, attitude, and clothes in order to get his attention. I was NOT a fan of Bellas's way of thinking.
The story was also somewhat predictable which is a no-no for me. You could just tell that Bella was going to start off like a brat and most likely change for the better. This didn't really happen, but...it seems like it will later on in the series. Okay that's not the predictable part though. What was predictable was the whole mystery part of the story, I won't elaborate because I wouldn't want to spoil it.
If you don't mind that then you'll probably like this book way more than me. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad read, it's pretty good, it's just not for everyone.

-tvandbookaddict.blogspot.com

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