Hunting Lila is a perfect example of this. And it almost always ends in disappointment.

You know how people say they're going to try not to go into a book with high expectations? People like me, that is. Given that this is a first book there is potential for great things, although from the teaser for the second book, I'm not going to like it either.

Rating: story quality 7/10, enjoyment 3/10. Either way, to really enjoy this book, I think that both of these will need to appeal to the reader. This is either a romance with very heavy suspense/action on the side, or an action/suspense/adventure story with very heavy romance on the side. Lila is busy trying to make her world view settle down into something she can cope with, and the reader is dragged along for the ride. This constant rearranging the point of view, changing the perspective on the information already available, is one of the strengths of the story. Which is the pattern of the novel - Lila misunderstands something, angsts (or obsesses over her brother's best friend Alex), some truth comes out. Which he won't actually come out and say, so she spends quite a while being quite believably teen-angsty about the whole situation. Who is really unimpressed with having her lob in on him, not because he doesn't want to see her, but because he thinks that it is dangerous for her to be there. Lila, the hero of the title, has a bad experience near her home in London, and deals with it by running off to the US to her brother Jack. But the constant references to the buff nature of different parts of his body - bored silly. I get that the point of view character is 17, and stressed, and obsessed with one particular young man who spends a lot of the novel in the same room with her.

And then I'll get cranky at them all again. Which - good, because there were a lot of interesting avenues that could be explored - and - bad, because I might be tempted to read it. And then the ending - feels like there is a sequel over the horizon. I read it to get it over with, because it was good enough that I didn't want to put it down, but damn it, would it just end already. I can't.Why? Because I ground my teeth all the way through. The writing is strong, the pacing is fantastic, the premise is good, the plot slots together nicely.

Losing Lila by Sarah Alderson