Monday 8 July 2013

Unteachable by Leah Raeder

Unteachable
*Copy of book provided by Leah Raeder in return for an honest review*

Rating: 5*

First of all, Leah should have titled this book the following:


"Alisha! This is the book you've been looking for!"

It truly was. For months now, I've been looking up new Indie authors, complaining about the masses of weakly written books that have so much potential etc. Finally, I've found an author who has a heck of a talent for writing. I admit, I was curious about what Leah's writing would be like. Then, I read the first page with a shit eating grin. The last time I read writing that was this well structured, poetic and lyrical was when I read April and Oliver by Tess Callahan. I can only ever wish to be such a good writer. Not only did I highlight inspirational quotes; a lot of the things I highlighted were some of the beautiful descriptions and depictions such as:

'Sodium light slanted through the windshield, painting the side of his face with warm lemon.'

AND

'"I can't hold on to you. You're like that shooting star. Just a trail of fire in my hands." And the Oscar goes to Evan Wilke, for putting the first fine, hairline crack in the ruby of my heart.' 

Honestly, the writing can not be faulted in the slightest, clearly worth 5 stars.

As for the characters, I completely felt like I could identify with the main protagonist, Maise. This is a rare thing for me as I usually disagree and loath female protags for their annoying/cliche/ self pitying ways. Maise is a character who lives in the moment, does what she wants, and doesn't piss about by constantly considering the consequences of her actions. She is strong willed and straight to the point, which was so refreshing. 

I liked the Lolita references as well. For some reason, in my head I cast Max Irons as Evan, which is a bit of a coincidence since Max's father, Jeremy Irons actually played Humbert Humbert in the film adaptation of Lolita. Basically, what I'm saying is that if this ever gets made into a movie, you HAVE to cast Max Irons. It is fate. 

The relationship dynamics between Maise and Evan were interesting because they were sans the typical relationship statuses that you read about. They weren't that type of couple who constantly get jealous, possessive or who argue 24/7. They had passion without all of this. The age gap put a twist on things and questioned the sphere of their relationship. To intensify things, there was also the controversial issue of their [Spoiler Alert!] Student-Teacher relationship.

Some point in the middle, I found the plot to be a little too paced where nothing much was happening and things were just going back and fourth a lot, but then when the status of the relationship began to encounter problems, things got more interesting. Especially when Wesley admitted to have been stalking Evan. I was seriously freaked out when he said [Spoiler] about Evan having no online history dated before 2011, that he was talking to himself in the car, and that he was a ghost! I seriously questioned his legitimacy and even palpability :')

The story was put to conclusion perfectly, no over the top drama, just what would have been. I hope more people get to read this author's work, and that we'll be hearing of a lot more stories from Leah and her amazing writing

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