{Review} Wild Cards by Simone Elkeles

Wild Cards

by Simone Elkeles

Series: Wild Cards #1
Pages: 342

Release Date: October 1, 2013

by Walker Books for Young Readers (an imprint of Bloomsbury)

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After getting kicked out of boarding school, bad boy Derek Fitzpatrick has no choice but to live with his ditzy stepmother while his military dad is deployed. Things quickly go from bad to worse when he finds out she plans to move them back to her childhood home in Illinois. Derek’s counting the days before he can be on his own, and the last thing he needs is to get involved with someone else’s family drama. Ashtyn Parker knows one thing for certain--people you care about leave without a backward glance. A football scholarship would finally give her the chance to leave. So she pours everything into winning a state championship, until her boyfriend and star quarterback betrays them all by joining their rival team. Ashtyn needs a new game plan, but it requires trusting Derek—someone she barely knows, someone born to break the rules. Is she willing to put her heart on the line to try and win it all?

*A copy was provided by Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review*

Even though this book was a really good love story, it wasn’t my favorite.  To me, it wasn’t as good as Perfect Chemistry, which I thought was amazing.  I can’t really put my finger on why I didn’t love this one.  The writing was very good, and I loved the humor of the book.  The staging and the beginning of the romance were really well done, and I really liked how Elkeles shaped the romance in the beginning.  I think the romance grew really well, but I did get kind of annoyed with the drama and the I-love-him/her-but-I-don’t-want-him/her-to-know stuff going on.  It made it interesting in the beginning, but as it kept on happening I kind of got sick of it.  I think the romance grew really well though, and the fact that Elkeles changed the POV really enhanced the book.  And I though the ending was pretty well done, but also a bit over-perfect, if that makes sense.

This cast was pretty awesome.  Derek, first off, is a character.  As in, he’s entertaining (obviously he’s a character, he’s in the book haha).  He definitely had an ego, and that made it really fun to watch him and Ashtyn fight and argue all the time.  He was funny, sexy, big-mouthed, but still a good character.  [SPOILER: But did find it annoying when the romance finally started to get going about three-fourths of the way through the book that Elkeles suddenly made Derek a one-night-stand kind of guy ].  Ashtyn was a good female main character, only I didn’t really like some of the choices she made throughout the book.  [SPOILER: I didn’t like the fact that she changed her own needs in a relationship to fit Derek’s needs.  As I said above, Elkeles said Derek was a one-night-stand guy, but Ashtyn was looking for commitment, but she changed her mind one night to try and please Derek.  That really annoyed me ].

All in all, this book wasn’t awesome, and I’ve read better romance books, but I did like the humor and the romance.

3 stars