05 January 2012

Book Review: Crash Test Love


Book Details

Author: Ted Michael
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 368 KB
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers; 1 edition (June 8, 2010)

Book Summary

The last thing Henry Arlington wants is a girlfriend. He's just very, very good with girls—reading their body language, knowing what they want to hear, and more importantly: getting them into the backseat of his car. But all that changes when he meets Garrett Lennox at one of the many Sweet Sixteen parties he crashes.
 
Garrett thinks she's done with guys. She was dumped by her ex when she moved from Chicago to Long Island, and now she realizes that she needs to find out who she is by herself, instead of with a boyfriend. What she really needs is some good friends.
 
Fortunately for Garrett, the J Squad—the "it" girls of East Shore High School—want her in their clique. All she has to do is pass one little test: get East Shore god Henry Arlington to take her to one of the biggest Sweet Sixteens of the year, then dump him in front of everyone.
 
Garrett has promised herself not to fall for another guy, so playing with Henry's heart shouldn't be hard. Right?
 
And Henry doesn't fall for girls, so when he and Garrett start to click, it doesn't matter. Does it?
As William Shakespeare once said, "Love is blind," or in this case, the lovers may be, as Henry and Garrett fall in love—and into the trap that awaits them. Because neither of them can even begin to see what the girls of Henry Arlington's past have in store.
 
This hilarious, sharp, and surprisingly thoughtful novel is the teenWedding Crashers, filled with love, hope, laughs, and surprising insights about the terrifying process of falling in love.

Book Review

Rating: 4/5

Crash Test Love introduces us to Henry Arlington, a guy who loves to hook up and Garret Lennox, who has her fair share of break ups and decided to swear off boys.

Henry Arlington and his best buddies have a hobby of gate crashing Sweet Sixteen parties all around Long Island and picking up girls there. They made a set of codes and one of those states to never hook up the second time around. One night, Henry bumps into Garret. He felt she was different from all the other girls he met in the parties, and he breaks another one of his rules – he spills his real name. He thought he was never going to see her again – but he was in for a surprise when he returns to school and finds Garret was also going there.

Garret just moved in and technically knows no one in her new school. She caught the attention of a popular clique, but there was a catch, if she wants to be in, she needs to make Henry like her, bring her to a Sweet Sixteen Party featured on MTV and dump him.

Crash Test Love is set in an alternating point of view. Although I find the dialogues kind of weird at first because it wasn’t in the usual form but it ended up well. I believe readers can still relate to the characters and their emotions.
As they get to know each other, readers see the development and growth within the character. Both characters, especially Henry’s, is not what he seems to be. There is more than to him that being just a player. Although their choices may not be that wise, but I was hopeful for the both of them.

I couldn’t give Crash Test Love a 5 because I really wanted the HEA for Henry and Garrett. I was hoping that the author would change his mind and just let the two be together in the end. On the other hand, his not-so-typical ending left readers hope for Henry and Garrett would find and settle their inner conflicts and have another shot in the future. 

Favorite Quotes

I am a relationship phoenix: I crash and burn and then I rise and start again.

I have always known there is a difference between loneliness and aloneness. I am alone, but my father is lonely. And if I had to choose one, I would rather be alone.

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. (Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, 2001)

Love is terrifying and hard and awful but it’s also amazing and beautiful, and there’s something about us, as humans, that wants that perfect relationship even though we know it’s probably unattainable, and even if we do manage to get it, holding on to t, helping it grow into something that will last a lifetime, well… it’s daunting in its impossibility.

You are never going to be strong by making someone else weak.

There is nothing sadder in this life that to watch someone you love walk away after they have left you. To watch the distance between your two bodies expand until there is nothing left but empty space… and silence (Someone Like You, 2001)

So here’s my question: when you lose the most important person to you in the entire world, where is all the love – love you never even knew you were capable of – supposed to go?
ChuCha




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