Under The Lights by Abbi Glines

2 Stars

“I want more than that. I want you. I want to be able to kiss you anytime I want. I want to hold your hand in the halls. Hell, I want to be made fun of by the guys for wanting to be near you all the time.” 


Where do I even begin with this? This is one of the first books I can remember blatantly disliking. I'm not overly picky as you can probably tell but this just brushed me the wrong way and looking quickly through goodreads ratings. I can see a lot of people did like it, later I'll probably go through and find out why exactly. I can't see the appeal. 

So, I only just realised this is the second book in a series. I don't think you need to have read the first book, Until Friday Night to read this because I got on fine without it. But, a quick bit of research tells me that there's a side character in this books who I actually wanted to learn more about was the main character of Until Friday Night. One of my initial issues with the books was the Riley had a really intriguing backstory and I wanted to learn more but no one really talked about it like  thought they would so I thought it was random to have that in there but now I know why it wasn't exactly explained. I'm kind of curious so I might end up reading it one day.

My first thought was that this was very dramatic and read like the kind of fanfic I wrote when I was about 12 years old. I was incredibly dramatic and I don't mean for that to sound rude, what I mean is it seems like the author is trying to fit as much scandal and drama into every page as she can and it just to me doesn't seem like mature writing. It was a lot going on, a lot of secrets, a lot of angst. I just thought it was so much going on and I don't really know how I felt about that much going on. 

I didn't like this whole love triangle thing. The thing is, I don't mind a love triangle when it's done well but this one wasn't it. It felt rushed and I thought it was hard to believe. Really, three guys are all into the one girl? Don't know. It felt unnecessary, it didn't add much to the story and it was hard to believe. 

It didn't feel like there was much of a climax or build up. It felt like a very solid read, you know what I mean? There wasn't much of a high point where everything comes together, it was like it was all coming together through out the whole book. There wasn't a lot to be excited for. 

It was also very 'omg, the girl from our childhood is so hot now' which made me wonder how much depth there was to the attraction. It was very blunt and whilst, I know boys can be like that, it's not very appealing. They talked about all girls like objects. They referred to Willa's 'bubble butt' and Serenas's huge boobs and 'hoover mouth'. It made it a bit uncomfortable to read. Butts and boobs I can get over but referring to someone as a 'hoover' definitely rubbed me the wrong way. Especially when it was the reason Gunner was taking her to homecoming. The lack of respect these boys had was a definite turn off for me. 

I'm not a fan, I don't know if I'll read anything else from this author. Honestly, probably not. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who had issues with this book. It's definitely not soft and pretty like the things I usually tend to read. I'd love to know if anyone else has read it and what they think of it because I'm just not thrilled at all.