Wednesday, October 28, 2009

-Review: Killing Britney by Sean Olin

DON'T FORGET TO ENTER MY GIVEAWAY, IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY!


Summary from back cover:


Britney is the girl everyone loves to hate.
 
Ever since Britney transformed herself from freak-and-geek to the most popular girl at school, her life has been touched by tragedy. First it was her mom, who drowned on a family rafting trip. Then her hockey-star boyfriend, Ricky, was killed in a hit-and-run.

 
When the deaths continue to pile up, everyone fears for Britney. Sure she's popular, blond, and fabulous. But is that enough reason for someone to want to...kill her?


***SPOILER WARNING*** My following review contains major spoilers, but trust me, you don't want to read this book anyway :\ If you do decide to go against my advice, don't read this review, I give away the ending. If you could even call it an ending.


Even as I was only a few pages into Killing Britney, I knew just from Olin's writing style that it was going to be hard for me to get into it the book.  The sentences were entirely too simple compared to what I'm used to--perhaps it may have been more enjoyable for young teens, middle school level possibly--and the whole story in general was just painfully undeveloped. It leaves the reader simply needing...well, more. Or better yet still, an entirely different book.


I'm going to be blunt and hopefully quick with this review, because I honestly disliked this book enough to not even want to discuss it any more than necessary.


Britney's mom dies in a rafting accident before the book even begins, and Britney is convinced it's all her fault. Her boyfriend Ricky is murdered in an intentional hit-and-run, and Britney is convinced that's also her fault. Pretty much everyone else in the story gets murdered and, [insert whiney voice here], Britney is convinced it's all her fault! Who would've guessed.


Of all the people in the book, you would think Britney's character would be the most developed, but it was quite the opposite. I knew everything about every other character, but knew close to nothing about Britney herself. One part of the book that especially pissed me off was a section (no more than a couple paragraphs) of conversation by one of her friends, saying "Britney is so dark after her mom died, I'm worried for her, She's got major issues" (not exact quotes from book but you get the idea) but then we aren't even shown enough of Britney's personality to know what the heck they're talking about! They just change topics. No explanation, no elaborating, not squat.


In the end, we find out it's Britney whose really killing everyone. It actually had potential to be a mediocre ending to a terrible book, but it's no surprise Olin couldn't even manage that. The ending concept was only described in 3 or 4 pages and frankly I was lost.


Why I'm even giving this two stars, I have no clue. Maybe I'm too frustrated from wasting my time on this book to think straight.





1 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for joining the Blog Link up party! Great review/addition to the group.

-CYM