The Reader's Shire - Book Reviews

Book Review: Unteachable

Title: Unteachable
Author: Leah Raeder
Series: -
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Format: Ebook
Length: 320 pages.
Publication date: March 24, 2014
Publisher: Atria Books
Goodreads Avg. Rating: 3.85 out of 5 stars
My Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars

Disclaimer:
Foul Language ahead. I know, I mentioned earlier that I would avoid it but I just can't. Well, not for this review, at least.

"Part of falling in love with someone is falling in love with yourself. Realizing your gorgeous, you're fearless and you're unpredictable, you're firecracker spitting light, entrancing a hundred faces that stare up at you with starry eyes."

Warning:
Reading this book may cause severe fangirling, hallucinations, cover licking (that is, if you own a copy) and the impulse to explode due to Leah Raeder's intoxicating writing. Go forth at your own risk.

"You have a lion's heart. You're not afraid to live."

Maybe you read the blurb introducing a story about forbidden love and maybe, like several other readers, you became doubtful because cliche plotlines seldom turn into good books. Maybe you saw the stunning cover and got suspicious because pretty books don't always have pretty words. I can relate. There are far too many books with similar ideas and eye-catching covers which end up getting one stars from us but I have to admit - I really enjoyed this.

"Grow up. This is real. The world is ugly and nasty and fucked up and so are we."

This book changed me. It was absolutely intense and in the best ways, fucked up. It usually takes a couple of chapters for a book to grab my undivided attention but Unteachable managed it within a sentence which is an achievement, if you ask me. I finished it in a span of five hours and it didn't feel rushed at all. I'm not even exaggerating.

"Planets moved in there orbits. Dawn broke in the United Kingdom. A car door slammed like a typewriter key".

The amazingly surprising thing is that this book had various overused elements - a student-teacher relationship, an absent father, a drug dealing mother, a "screw-what-they-think" heroine and a "changes-heroines-life" love interest. And seriously, if an author can turn a cliche and repetitive idea into something remarkable, then they're extremely talented.

"That's all life is. Breathing in, breathing out. The space between two breaths."

Unteachable begins with an evoked sense of colourful, vivid imagery of the carnival. A place brimming with the aroma of buttery popcorn and murky beer, the blinding neon lights, the excited screams rising from the heart-thumping roller coasters and the people clattering amidst the food stalls and the games. This was my image of the symbolic amusement park which Raeder painted with her words.

"Even when I opened my mouth, flame licked up my throat. I could have razed villages, kidnapped princesses".

Maise O'Malley is your host for this show - a tiger stuck in an eighteen year old girl's shitty and chaotic life. She's that girl with the green eyes, zero makeup and those simple, unbranded clothes which should lessen her beauty but don't. She's that girl you cast those fearful yet admiring glances. She's that girl whose tougher than the sharpest rock yet so fragile. She's that girl with the bitter past including the mother she fears she'll become. She's that girl who still hasn't had her dreams, aspirations and goals shattered despite all the things she's witnessed.

"And he kissed me.

And we lived happily ever after.

Until the next morning."