Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Review of Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend by Katie Finn

Title:  Broken Hearts, Fences, and Other Things to Mend 
Author: Katie Finn
Source: From the publisher
Series: Yes
Rating: 3/5








Goodreads Summary:
Gemma just got dumped and is devastated. She finds herself back in the Hamptons for the summer—which puts her at risk of bumping into Hallie, her former best friend that she wronged five years earlier. Do people hold grudges that long? When a small case of mistaken identity causes everyone, including Hallie and her dreamy brother Josh, to think she’s someone else, Gemma decides to go along with it. Gemma's plan is working (she's finding it hard to resist Josh), but she's finding herself in embarrassing situations (how could a bathing suit fall apart like that!?). Is it coincidence or is someone trying to expose her true identity? And how will Josh react if he finds out who she is? 

The premise of this book sounded interesting. It is about a girl named Gemma who is trying to make an amends for a wrong she committed when she was 11.  She hurt her best friend and she has not spoken to her since then. Gemma never planned on going back to the Hampton's, but circumstances cause her to have to go back and face what she ran away from.

The novel starts when Gemma's summer starts going downhill. Her mom tells her that she will be spending the summer with her dad in the Hampton's which she has avoided since she was 11.

Gemma is a hard character to like. She seems so naive, and there was so many things that I think someone else would pick up on the things that were going on but she was completely oblivious. This was my biggest issue with the book. I could not connect with Gemma at all. I found her to be such a frustrating character. The second big issue I had with this book was how she treated her ex-best friend Hallie. She decided when she sent to the Hampton's for the summer that she is going to make amends with Hallie, but when she see's her at the bus station she lies immediately about her name and things go downhill from there. Gemma has a lot of chances to make things right with Hallie and every time she blows it.  The love interest Josh, turns out to be Hallie's brother which was a little predictible. Josh is a super sweet guy who really treats everyone so well and I am looking forward to see how the story is going to play out between him and Gemma and between himself and his sister.

There is a lots of hints towards a book that everyone seems to be reading which makes me curious if it is going to play out in the future novels. I think I know what where the book is going to come in but I could be completely wrong and there is no connection with this novel and Gemma just notices a lot of people reading it. The plot twist was pretty obvious, I was hoping for more from this novel which I feel it sadly lacked. I liked it, but it took me quite awhile to get through it.

I think I will read the second book in this series. I liked the ending, I am really interested to see where things are going to go from here. I think that Gemma is going to become a much more interesting character in the next novel in the series.

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