Review: Second Star

Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Release Date: May 13th, 2014

A twisty story about love, loss, and lies, this contemporary oceanside adventure is tinged with a touch of dark magic as it follows seventeen-year-old Wendy Darling on a search for her missing surfer brothers. Wendy’s journey leads her to a mysterious hidden cove inhabited by a tribe of young renegade surfers, most of them runaways like her brothers.

Wendy is instantly drawn to the cove’s charismatic leader, Pete, but her search also points her toward Pete's nemesis, the drug-dealing Jas. Enigmatic, dangerous, and handsome, Jas pulls Wendy in even as she's falling hard for Pete. A radical reinvention of a classic, Second Star is an irresistible summer romance about two young men who have yet to grow up--and the troubled beauty trapped between them.

Taken from Goodreads

Start: 4/21/2014 | End: 4/23/2014 | Pages: 248 | Rating: 1.5 Stars 

My Thoughts:

I received this eARC from Netgalley. 

There are a lot of things I want to discuss about Second Star, and it being good is not one of them. The book's only 250 pages, and I never ever want to hear about surfing again. Before I "dive" into my review, I'm just going to list how many times these words popped up.

Surfer: 63 times
Ocean: 93 times
Beach: 175 times
Wave: 287 times!!!

This means that the word "wave" or "waves" appeared more than once on every page of this book. Like really? Can't you see how sick and tired I am of these words!

So here's the plot, and yes surprisingly there is one. Wendy is under the assumption that her brothers John and Michael, are out there somewhere catching the next big wave. Her parents, and everyone else, think they are dead. But instead of listening to them, Wendy travels to different beaches to look, one of them being Kensington. This is where she meets Pete.

Wendy spends most of her time at Kensington, trying to question the boys living there on whether they ever met her brothers. And she also meets Jas, the other surfer on the other side of the beach. 

She pretty much has a grand old time.

First off, I just want to say that Second Star is not realistic at all. Or maybe it is? Do parents let you go on a road trip all of a sudden without questioning you further? Do they not worry about you when you're gone for a good month? Are houses just randomly abandoned for teens to just occupy? And WHY IS EVERYONE IN THIS NOVEL SO SMART??

And also, after two pages into the book, I started laughing out loud at this line:  

'Surfers,' I whisper without meaning to.

Oh man. This is when you know you're in for a bad time. This really makes it seem like surfers are the worst people in the world. And also that Wendy hates them, which doesn't make any sense because a couple chapters later she's hanging out with them casually without a second thought.

I think this book would've been much better off in the third person. Second star is filled with Wendy's useless thoughts. Honestly I wanted to bash her on the head throughout the book. I absolutely hate idiot characters who don't know how to make decisions. Halfway through the novel, Wendy and Jas visit a creepy bar in order to question the people inside to see if they knew either Michael or John, and what does she do??? She immediately talks to the creepiest guy in the room. And then he comes after her and even follows her back to the car! I know you want to be brave, and I applaud yourself for that, but I'm not sure if that's the first guy you should've talked to.

The only reason why I'm giving Second Star at least 1 star is because there is resemblance between the real Peter Pan and this story, and I don't mean just the names. That was pretty much the only creative aspect though.

Yep. So basically, I personally don't recommend Second Star, but I bet some people will like it, especially if you like beaches and surfers and the west coast. But me, I didn't care about a thing in this book. Not the characters, the plot, nothing. I do not pity Wendy one bit.

For anyone else that has this book on their TBR list, I hope I didn't ruin anything for you! And thanks for reading my review/rant haha. But as you can see, I did not enjoy it.

✰1/2