Defending Taylor Review

I got a pdf copy of Miranda Kenneally's Defending Taylor through netgalley, a website that's become one of my new favorite things. While I've heard of some of Miranda Kenneally's other books I've never read them before, but I quickly realized it's a little like Stephanie Perkins and where the characters in the books have some kind of connections.

Defending Taylor is about the daughter of a U.S. senator who gets kicked out of her boarding school when she lies to cover for her boyfriend. All of her hard work to be captain of the soccer team and the intense classes to get that 4.2 GPA and her plan to go to Yale is put into jeopardy. Now, she has to go to Hundred Oaks High, a public school where the classes aren't as good and her new soccer team hates her. The only person who sympathizes is Ezra, her childhood crush who is back in town.

The first part of this book I was rolling my eyes like crazy. It was attempting to portray Taylor as this rich girl who is still perfect and nice to everybody. It was a little disgusting to see how she viewed herself as wealthy but still so kind to the poor! Her housekeeper Marina and how only she knows what is good for team building on the soccer team. She was portrayed as being above everybody yet still so generous so everybody loves her. Gag. Yes, wealthy people can be good people but when this was just thrown into my face so I would like Taylor's character, it came off as so fake to me. Thus, I was originally going to give this book only one or two stars (which I almost never do!). However, once this over-the-topness stopped and the book became more about the story instead of how perfect Taylor is, I found myself enjoying it more.

There was some good stuff about finding out what you want to do, instead of just doing what's expected of you. I enjoyed the fact that it took into consideration that Taylor killing herself to do well wasn't okay and that we should all relax at times and enjoy the small things. Yes, preparing for the future is important, but I never want to look back on my life and have no good memories.

Overall this book was just alright to me. It's not a book that will last in my mind and it was just an easy romance read. It had some feminism qualities and the romance was okay, but nothing was strong enough to stand out in my mind. I will probably read some more of Miranda Kenneally's books though because sometimes I enjoy and need something easy.

Defending Taylor comes out July 5th!!