We're all aware that bad boys with a heart of gold only exist in fiction, right? Just so we're clear.When I rate a book, I always keep in mind the genre. For instance, a YA book will not be held to the same standards as a nonfiction cultural study intended for adults, as that would be an unfair comparison. Two totally different animals. When it comes to books like The Vincent Boys and the rest of the genre, I almost always rate based solely on how much fun I had reading it.
And I had a lot of fun reading this. Unfortunately, there are some glaring problems that took away stars. Even the teen genre needs a certain amount of quality.
Books like this are brain candy. Fun, light reading that doesn't require you to think too much, you just sit back and enjoy the story. These are the type of novel that give my brain a break when I've been reading too much history or nonfiction, so I keep a handful lying around for when I just need some entertainment. I love them more than I should, seeing as how I'm far older than the intended age group. Oh well.
First: I really did enjoy reading this. It was fun, the plot wasn't overly complicated, and Abbi Glines included some nice, fun scenes. Surprisingly racy for a teen novel, which I think is a good thing, it adds some realism that's missing in a lot of other teen romances. Let's be honest, teenagers have sex, and it's a nice change to see a young adult author actually acknowledging this fact. Her characters act like teens, not like adults stuck in teen bodies. They have fun, they fuck up, they don't always think before they act, and they hurt other people.
As another reviewer said, this was an entertaining way to pass a couple hours. Forgettable, cliche, downright ridiculous at times, and written without much skill, but still entertaining.
The Vincent Boys has its problems. The characters are poorly developed, underwritten, and only Beau has any sort of complexity. (I can, however, totally see why he's got such a drooling fan base.) Ashton is too simplistic for a narrator, and Sawyer is a complete caricature, as if Glines put him on a pedestal in order to avoid having to make him seem human. The parents? Oh God, don't get me started on the utterly cliche, inconsistently written parents.
I don't mind a cliche story and when reading books like this, I actually expect it to be cliche, as that's just the downfall of the genre. But the ending had better be, at the very least, freakin' believable. Glines failed at this, and she failed hard. A love triangle that rips apart cousins, reveals a deep family secret, involves betrayal and disapproving, judgmental parents, and she wraps it up all nice and neat and clean with everyone loving and accepting everyone else? Come. The Fuck. On. I know of no one who would, after an initial period of anger, give his blessing to the two people who screwed him over and then ensure they remained together. The religious father having a sudden change of heart and condoning his daughter's reckless behavior? Bullshit. I call bullshit on this. I call bullshit from the rooftops of teen novel land and I do so with a passion.
The ending almost ruined the entire thing for me. Too perfect, too sappy, and so utterly unbelievable that I was actually laughing at loud because it was just that awful.
Oh dear. Abbi Glines made a mistake with her conclusion, that's for sure. Honestly, she should've cut out every other character, given Beau his very own story separate from that mess, and run with it. He's good enough for the genre, but the rest (characters, ending, and cliches alike) are not.
Read it if you're not expecting anything other than fluff. And turn your logical brain completely off, you'll thank me for it later.
