Kaleidoscope Hearts by Claire Contreras

From Goodreads:

He was my older brother’s best friend.
He was never supposed to be mine.
I thought we would get it out of our system and move on.

One of us did.
One of us left.

Now he’s back, looking at me like he wants to devour me. And all those feelings I’d turned into anger are brewing into something else, something that terrifies me.
He broke my heart last time.
This time he’ll obliterate it.

This is a standalone.

My Review…

I’ve lost count of all the NA titles that I have read since I decided to be an online book reviewer. But I can tell you that’s its A LOT. I guess I’m saying this because I think I have that as a reason to question every book that I will read with ‘OKAY, WHAT’S UNIQUE ABOUT YOU? WHAT MAKES YOU SPECIAL FROM ALL THE BOOKS I HAVE READ BEFORE?’

So yeah, I asked that too while I was reading Kaleidoscope Hearts. And sadly, it didn’t give me an enough answer to rate it higher than 2 stars. I’m not saying this is a horrible book. Not at all. In fact, Claire Contreras’ writing is beautiful. This is my first from her and I can definitely say that it won’t be the last. She reminds me of Amy Harmon.  All lyrical but on point. (I don’t even know if that makes sense) Anyway, what I’m saying is I like the way she writes. Period.

But plot wise,  uggggghhh. Honestly, I am expecting so much. But unfortunately its one of those ‘been there, read that‘ kind of book. I don’t rehash things that happened on my reviews and I won’t make an exception here. But here’s a gist: its one of those I-want-him-but-I’ll-repel-him kind of situation. And what happens next is pretty much predictable, of course the girl would just want him more. So the book turns into a NA CLASSIC: A GAME OF BOY-GIRL CHASING (annoying best friend included) It’s so frustrating.

The girl is all talk but loses sense when the guy (who broke her heart so much in the past) comes in. I don’t blame her that much, since this kind of thing happens in real life too but dear god, IT’S ANNOYING. The things that she’s saying are so different from what she’s doing that I just…ugh, she’s too complicated to read. And painful.

The characters are MEH. All of them. So sad about that, truly. I thought there’ll be at least one of them who I’ll like so much but it turns out, all of them just made me forget their names the moment I closed my kindle. I reviewed this book right away since I know I’ll forget everything soon.

So. If you’re willing to read a classic NA, and okay with predictable endings then I recommend this. The writing is great too so there’s a lot of phrases to quote. Extra points for some. BUT. If your time is precious and you want your book intense, deep and meaningful.. then sorry people, nothing to see here!