Thursday 4 December 2014

Review: The Shape of My Heart by Ann Aguirre

The Shape of My Heart by Ann Aguirre

Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Publication Date: November 24th, 2014
Series: 2B Trilogy #3
Pages: 352
Source: Netgalley/Publisher
Rating: 2.5/5

Some people wait decades to meet their soul mate. Courtney Kaufman suspects she met hers in high school only to lose him at seventeen. Since then, Courtney's social life has been a series of meaningless encounters, though she's made a few close friends along the way. Especially her roommate Max Cooper, who oozes damaged bad-boy vibes from every pore.

Max knows about feeling lost and trying to move beyond the pain he's been on his own since he was sixteen. Now it's time to find out if he can ever go home again, and Courtney's the only one he trusts to go with him. But the trip to Providence could change everything because the more time he spends with Courtney, the harder it is to reconcile what he wants and what he thinks he deserves.

It started out so simple. One misfit helping another. Now Max will do anything to show Courtney that for every heart that's ever been broken, there's another that can make it complete.

Alright, unfortunately The Shape of My Heart was my least favourite in the trilogy. It was an enjoyable New Adult read. I flew through it. But I do fly through most NA books. I'll start with the positive(a very big one), diversity. Courtney is bi. She's fully out and not hiding who she is. I think Aguirre did a really good job of writing about Courtney's sexuality. Her Jewish parents may not be totally happy with her choices, but otherwise she surrounds herself with people that don't care what person she finds attractive. They just like Courtney for who she is. I also think Aguirre still shows a realistic depiction of college life. The struggles with discovering who you are, where you want to go in life, classes, friendship, money. These characters are unsure and just trying to figure it out. And that's what you do in college. 

As with a lot of NA series, they are companion series technically. So we meet both Courtney and Max in the previous book(s). Max got his heart broken by Lauren, who than moved out on the apartment and Courtney moved in to her room. Max and Courtney have known each other for a few years before she moved in. They're pretty much BFF's. Both have a lot of family drama to deal with. Max comes from a lower middle class childhood where Courtney's dad is rich. So they disagree on some things there, like how Courtney has never had a work a day in her life. She likes to pretend like she doesn't come from money. But her schooling, life and rent taken care of by her parents it's a mask she hides behind. Well Max worked his butt off to get into college and still works his butt off to afford to finish college. Their friendship was good. It was believable. But when they finally get together, nope. Just didn't work for me. Their relationship felt way to forced. They were kind of living in this make-believe world where they worked well together but in reality there was just too much that was fake about it. 
Courtney was really my biggest problem. She's kind of delusional. She thinks that just because she doesn't dress and act like her parents expect she's living outside of her parents box. Yet Courtney is living off their money. Uh, what? It's time to grow up. And than when the inevitable shit hits the fan between Courtney and Max, where Max realizes that Courtney doesn't really respect his lifestyle and she's lied about how easy she comes by money. Courtney of course doesn't want to let Max go, so when her parents cut her off(which should have been a major step in Courtney growing the eff up), she knows she needs to get a job, find a new apartment live and just pay for shit herself. But does she get a job for herself? No. She gets it to appease Max and show him that she can support herself. That's a big red flag in my books. Never do you do something for someone else. Courtney should have realized, once she was cut off(well before that but that's beside the point), that it was time to enter adult hood and actually have something to put on your resume. It should have been about her growth as a person for herself not for Max. And than when she was more stable and heading the right direction she could have contacted Max and see if they could progress from there. So frustrating. 

I also found the writing to be really disjointed and wonky. Like there were transitional sentences and dialogue missing in places. The Shape of My Heart just didn't flow as nicely as the previous books. Just a lot of forced conversations between characters. 

I overall enjoyed the 2B Trilogy. Aguirre gave a really realistic picture of college life. And I got to meet Lauren and Rob who are a fantastic couple. I loves them. 

Happy reading!

Brittany


1 comment:

  1. I really want to read this trilogy! I had passed it up when they first came out because the New Adult term scared me off but they sound so fun. I'll go into this one with somewhat lowered expectations. Thanks for sharing!

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