Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Review: Bitter End by Jennifer Brown

Bitter End
Synopsis:

When Alex falls for the charming new boy at school, Cole -- a handsome, funny, sports star who adores her -- she can't believe she's finally found her soul mate . . . someone who truly loves and understands her.

At first, Alex is blissfully happy. Sure, Cole seems a little jealous of her relationship with her close friend Zack, but what guy would want his girlfriend spending all her time with another boy? As the months pass, though, Alex can no longer ignore Cole's small put-downs, pinches, or increasingly violent threats.

As Alex struggles to come to terms with the sweet boyfriend she fell in love with and the boyfriend whose "love" she no longer recognizes, she is forced to choose -- between her "true love" and herself.

Pages: 368 pages(Hardcover)
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; 1 edition
Released: May 10, 2011

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Cole is the new boy in town and is Alex is assigned to tutor him. Alex is instantly taken by him and it seems Cole likes her two. As the days go by, both of them steal looks at each other while they work. When they start dating, everything is perfect. Cole is a true gentleman and Alex loves being with him. Ah young love, how sweet it is.

The only weird thing is that he hates how close Alex and Zack, one of her best friends, is. And he hates that Zack touches her all the time, so he wants that relationship to stop. Alex understands, I mean, what guy would want another guy touching his girlfriend? She's in a relationship now, so things should be different.

But Alex wants her friends and Cole to get along, so when she gathers the crew up to go to a party she only assumes the best will happen. Too bad things start to go downhill from there.

Alex believes that if a guy ever touched her she'd leave right away, but when the emotional and physical abuse starts to happen Alex finds herself drawing nearer to Cole despite herself.

Overall:

The Bitter End is a tale of abuse, you pretty much get that idea from reading the synopsis, so when Alex first meets Cole you already know what's going to happen. It's a big hard to watch her get sucked in, when it's clear that he's a bad guy. I don't want to say she's stupid for what happened and letting herself get taken away, because she's not. Unless you're in that situation you never know what you'll do. Alex is a great character, but she's a great character that got sucked into a really bad and unhealthy relationship.

I did like reading about Cole's family though. His family life is pretty crummy and even though it's never really said, I did suspect that Cole's mother is being abused by his father.

One of the things that confused me, while reading the novel, was how long the abuse was going. At first, I thought this was going to be simply emotional abuse since it seemed to be going that way, but then he starts hitting her.

The book isn't as depressing as Dreamland by Sarah Dessen, but it does touch on some important points that teens should read about.

4 stars

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