Chain Reaction by Simone Elkeles

Chain Reaction (Perfect Chemistry #3) by Simone Elkeles ☆☆☆☆

Not my favorite book of the series, but still a good read. My favorite has to be the second book. I fell in love with Carlos and it was great seeing him in this book again. I especially like the guy, Giancarlo, that plays Carlos in the book trailers, but that's beside the point. Speaking of which though, my favorite part of this series is the book trailers for this book and the last. They fully encompass what happens in the book in just a few short scenes, that makes me want to read the book faster. And if it ever becomes a movie, I hope they keep the same guys playing the brothers.

Oh, the Fuentes brothers. How suave and sexy they are, all cocky and knowing they have it going on. I love the bad boys. But that's no surprise...

Things I like about this book:
- Luis doesn't end up with a white girl like Alex and Carlos. That was becoming a bit of a cliche match up with the last book.
- The brothers really spent time bonding. They casually avoided each other before, but in this book they came together in all the best ways, even when odds were against them.
- Spanish code-switching. The Spanish is well integrated into the story and it makes the story more real for me since there is a lot of code-switching where I live. Even though I had to look up translations for a lot of it....

Thing I didn't like about this book:
- That all the brothers end up with the happily ever afters in high school. Each one of them met his girl in senior year and couldn't live without her. Sure I could suspend my disbelief and go for it, with the exception that this book clearly mentions a statistic that only 5% of couples stay together after high school. All three of them in the 5%? I doubt it. Still love the love stories though.
- The epilogues. I've despised them in every book. It feels like a fan fiction attempt at wrapping the story up, not letting the story really speak for itself. The only thing I really benefited from this last epilogue is seeing that the brothers are still incredibly close even after twenty-six years.

I'm glad I finished the series out. I'm going to miss the Fuentes brothers. I'm not really going to miss their girlfriends. There were things about each of them that I just couldn't stand, but I loved the boys enormously and it was worth the read on each book for those boys alone. And worth it for the covers too, seeing as how the first cover is what drew me to the series :)

Rules of Attraction (Perfect Chemistry 2) by Simone Elkeles

Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles ☆☆☆☆☆

I had to order this online because I was on a waitlist at the library and didn't want to wait! Luckily Amazon even had it on sale! Unluckily I waited longer to read it then I would have if I had just waited for the library to send it. Irony at its best.

I loved this book! Getting to that in a second, I'd like to add what I didn't like: the epilogue. This is the same problem I had with the first book. To me both felt like they had the perfect ending (which I don't say often) to where I wasn't anxious for anymore information and just felt satisfied with what I was given. And then you come to the unnecessary epilogue that felt like reading bad fan fiction. In Perfect Chemistry the epilogue was set 23 in the future and in this book it was 26 years. It's not necessarily tying up loose ends (especially since there aren't any); it's just, in both cases, showing history repeating itself in a humorous way. Without the epilogues they would be perfect books.

However, I do still love the book in so many ways. This book mimicked my own high school life (without the gangs): an arrogant Mexican boy that continues to get in trouble and a down-to-earth gringa that doesn't care about her appearance and is willing to give herself fully if it means getting love. Honestly, I wish I would have had this book to read a decade ago and maybe the choices I made would be very very different. That being said, if I identified with it that much then I'm sure there are many other girls (or guys) that would as well, and so I am very glad that this book is out there for them to read and look at the choices they're making in an entirely different way.

This book pulled me in so easily and so tightly that I didn't want to give it up. I was literally dreaming the book while I slept, just waiting until I could pick it up again. And I anxiously handed it off to my friend so that she could love it as much as I did.

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles ☆☆☆☆☆

Oh, thank you my library staff! Wandering around the young adult section (as I do so often) I saw this book displayed on the end of the shelf and totally judged the book by its cover. I had to get it right then and there, no exceptions. I mean how could anyone resist this cover? :)

So this is one of the first times I've ever read a book with alternating voices. The last one being Time Traveler's Wife. It was a bit confusing. I was so engrossed in the story that I'd start reading the next chapter without remembering to switch voices. Those moments were hilarious though.

This book made me disappointed in myself though. I live on the border, I speak Spanglish, as does everyone else here. This book is FULL of Spanglish. And yet, I had to use the translator on my phone to follow along in certain points in the book. A lot of books that use Spanish will let's say ask a question in Spanish while the other character answers them in English while somewhat repeating the question so that you can get the jist of it in context. This one didn't do that. Which, in it's context was a good thing because she wasn't going to understand anything that he and his group said so it definitely worked. But I was disappointed that I didn't know as much as I should. A lot of the dialogue I hear on a daily basis and never really know the exact meaning, I have a general idea of the meaning, but that's it.

When I first started this book I wasn't all that impressed. The characters were both super cliche. She was a rich white girl and head cheerleader, he was a Mexican gang banger. But the way their characters developed, the things you learned about them, was realistic, fluid, and amazing. I tend to read before bed a few chapters a night, when I got to the half way point of this book and went to read my few chapters I literally couldn't put it down. My son came into my room when he woke up asking why I never went to sleep....and it still took me until noon before I finished it. That's impressive to me. In fact, it made such a difference in my perspective that I bought the sequel on Amazon immediately because there was a wait list at my library and I didn't want to wait. That review is on its way....

The only true complaint I would have about this book was the ending. It felt rushed and almost forced. Things didn't naturally progress as they had in the rest of the novel. But as good as the story was I was perfectly okay with that. And then.....there was the epilogue. Eww, could have completely done without that, thank you very much. It was unnecessary and more than forced. The best I could describe it would be someone's attempt at fanfiction after the novel. I'm hoping the sequel makes up for this, but I'm looking past it regardless. :)