Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

To give this book some credit, it was not as bad as I expected. That is to say, it's not as bad as Beautiful Disaster which is the standard I now compare all these sorts of romance books to. Having said that, boy is this book one steaming pile of clichés.

Brittany is your typical blonde girl perfectionist, Alex is your typical bad boy Mexican gang member. They get the hots for each other, they fight, they finally get together, some ridiculous conflict gets in the way...there's nothing new here is what I'm saying. But on the whole, it was marginally better than the worst I've seen of these bad boy books. So what didn't I like?

1) The romance-Okay, this might seem a bit obvious at first. But what I mean is, unlike some examples the courting of these two star-crossed teens is actually okay. There's no stalking (just mild kidnapping), boundaries are respected and they don't even kiss for like a 100 pages. But the second these two get together it all falls apart. Literally, for the two or three chapters they're 'happy' before the standard conflict kicks in, all they do is fight and prove how different they are. How I'm supposed to think they have a happy future is beyond me but thank god for the epilogue to prove me wrong!

2) The epilogue-Alright, the kid thing was cute if not entirely clichéd. I'm talking more about the fact they went to the same college and both decided to take Chemistry and then developed a not-quite-cure for Alzheimer's, presumably together. Because you know, the book went to such lengths to show us how much they love and are dedicated to that subject. Also GET IT THEY HAVE CHEMISTRY LOL

3) ALL THE GRATUITOUS SPANISH.

Yes, Alex is Mexican. We get it, Mexicans are hot. But literally, every scene with them has so much Spanish sprinkled around that it feels like burritos are being jammed down my throat as I read it

4) The 'mystery' of Alex's father's death-Because it was so obvious.

All in all, this book has some nice elements. I liked Brittany's sister and I think she added an element not usually explored in YA fiction. Also unlike some romances, there were actually quite a lot of prominent side characters and the main characters definitely had a life outside their relationship. If you like this genre then you could do far worse than this book. If not, well you're probably not going to read it anyway

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