Book Review: Love on the Lifts

Book: Love on the Lifts by Rachel Hawthorne

Description:

Winter Break super-secret perfect cocoa recipe:

8 oz steamed whole milk
(no skim! doesn't work!)

2 tbsp. dark cocoa powder (big scoops)

1 tbsp. sugar (can't be too sweet)

4 dried, crushed mint leaves
(or 1 tbsp. mint syrup)

Stir thoroughly. Add mint swizzle stick. Combine with cute ski instructor, or brother's cute best friend, or cute guy you never noticed was so cute...Enjoy.



Rating: 1 star

Review:

One star or two stars I couldn't really decide at first because I found this book to be mediocre at best but then it got worse the more I read it. I couldn't stand all the insta-love and lust which was mostly what this book was about. I thought this was going to be a cute and fun read not a boring story.

Love on the Lifts follows high school senior Kate Kennedy and her two best friends (who are also seniors) Leah Locke and Allie Anderson who spend their winter break visiting her aunt Sue in the Colorado ski town Snow Angel Valley. Kate's aunt even let them stay at one of the condos she wasn't able to rent out.

While the girls were sitting around outside making a snowman and talking about Kate's huge and nearly obsessive crush on her older brother Sam's roommate Brad Connor their girls' getaway was interrupted. Her brother Sam (who is a college freshman) and his two friends from college Brad and Joe Foster showed up at the condo unexpectedly. Apparently, their aunt had invited both Kate and Sam to stay at the condo.

With Brad there, that set Kate and her friends in motion for Operation Get-Brad-Together-With-Kate. That plan lasted all of one night because as soon as the group went out to dinner for pizza with aunt Sue, Brad fell instantly in love with another girl. Instead of Kate realizing that she really didn't know anything about Brad other than she thought he was hot, she spent far too long pining over him and still trying to figure out a way to get Brad interested in her.

Meanwhile, her friends and her brother were all instantly falling in love. Leah found a ski instructor while Allie and Sam made an instant connection and despite knowing each other for years and supposedly both having mutual crushes on each other they finally have this connection. So that left Kate and Joe as the last ones out. Kate really didn't have any interest in Joe because she was still too wrapped up in her obsessive crush on Brad, a guy she barely knew and constantly called her the wrong name (hello, that should have been a huge sign right there). But little did she know, Joe really liked her. It's easy to see how this book turned out.

There was barely anything interesting about this except for aunt Sue, who was a world traveler and owned a bookstore as well as a few condos she rented out. I like that she was a free spirit but I didn't like how she was trying so hard to match Kate up.

A few more things I didn't like were the writing, the story and the characters. This was written as a weird edgy middle grade book. Even though these characters were in high school and college the way they were written makes them appear as if they were still in middle school but somehow realized they were old enough for all the implied sexual situations they were engaging in.

Other than aunt Sue, I thought Joe was okay and he was a really nice guy. But I did find it hard to see what Joe found so fascinating about Kate, she was so annoying. As for the other characters they were equally forgettable and had zero personality.

Although the plot is something that's been done quite often that didn't make this a bad read it was the boring story, poor writing and boring characters that did. This was an easy read but it was too predictable. I just found this to be a real let down. It was neither fun nor romantic just insta-love.