Review: Past Perfect by Leila Sales

Title: Past Perfect
Author: Leila Sales
Published: October 4th 2011 by Simon Pulse

Goodreads Summary:

All Chelsea wants to do this summer is hang out with her best friend, hone her talents as an ice cream connoisseur, and finally get over Ezra, the boy who broke her heart. But when Chelsea shows up for her summer job at Essex Historical Colonial Village (yes, really), it turns out Ezra’s working there too. Which makes moving on and forgetting Ezra a lot more complicated…even when Chelsea starts falling for someone new.
Maybe Chelsea should have known better than to think that a historical reenactment village could help her escape her past. But with Ezra all too present, and her new crush seeming all too off limits, all Chelsea knows is that she’s got a lot to figure out about love. Because those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it….

Racquel's thoughts:
Past Perfect started out good for me. It really did! The summary promised a quick fun read which I love and I was going in it with hopes of entertainment and laughs and yes, I did get that.

But it went downhill for me. It wasn't the plot or the writing because I found the spine of the story quite solid and actually fun but I had a problem with the cliché-ness. First of all, I had just got done reading the epic wonderfulness that is Graffiti Moon so I was on a reading high. The beginning was promising but I still got the vibe of the writer trying to create a teenage world- and failing. We have Fiona who is the main character's best friend. Fiona is your typical and by typical and I do downright typical best friend. Beautiful, confidant and goes through guys like I go through Hot Cheetos in her quest to find the 'right man'. One third of the books I read have these 'best friend' and that's where this is similar with Graffiti Moon because we had this exact 'best friend' (Jazz) in GM but let's just it worked in Graffiti Moon (even tough I hate comparing books!)

So you can see the cliché forming (just to throw it out there my best friend has been with the same guy- I introduced them XD- since 2009!) already. Moving on, I did not understand whatever attraction Chelsea had to Ezra or really how they're relationship became and how she loved him, I really couldn’t see how they were EVER a couple and I thought that I missed some paragraphs in the book because that’s how lost I was in the beginning with the explanation of their past ‘relationship’.

Not all that was the deal breaker for me though, it was Chelsea. She was a likeable enough character in the beginning but then she got really… judgmental. Before I continue on, I have to say my BIGGEST pet peeve, the one thing that truly makes me think about suicide is judging other people. I hate when people do it and I try my best not to do it so when Chelsea started dropping stereotypes- the blond popular cheerleaders, the airhead jocks, the super amazing underrated regular people- I wanted to bang my head on something. WHY OH WHY do author do this? Do they actually think all cheerleaders are blond? That all cheerleaders are popular? That all jocks are dumb, mean and heartbreakers? That all artists are the misunderstood ones?

I think I’m going to take a picture of our yearbook to show you how many non-blonde and non-white cheerleaders I have in my school and GASP!! How many football players are in AP classes! But this just a fake reality I imagined up because surely, no way in hell can real life brake stereotypes!

I was going to give this book 3 stars but come on, if the best part for me was when the main character got beat up you know something is wrong. Which lead me to the stupidity of some of the characters and situations. When a character got badly hurt of the dumbest thing on earth no body realized that they were taking there ‘war’ a little too far ? Does common sense not exist anymore? And what about the ‘popular’ totally judging and making fun of Chelsea but you know what they say, karma is a bitch because throughout the book she is the biggest bitch of the century to a boy who likes her just because he’s a complete history geek and kinda looks like toad. Good job on not behaving like a complete ‘popular’ Chelsea! And lastly, let’s just say the MC is shunned out from her group of friends because she went out with ‘the enemy’ the one guy who was ever good, kind and amazing to her but then she totally fucks him over for those so called friends who made her life hell because of a guy! Now I understand people make mistakes but I’m drawing the line at pity mistakes. If Chelsea can’t see who her real friends are, then she deserves what she got…

I hate being mean because honestly I finished this book cover to cover without skimming ANYTHING and I had a few good laughs and ‘awww’ cute moments but still I’m not going to overlook those things no matter how guilty giving a bad review makes me…

My Rating:

First Line:

"There are only three types of kids who get summer jobs at Colonial Essex Village instead of just working at the mall, like normal people do."

Favorite:

"Which is the one who picked you up and threw you over his shoulder like you were some wounded maiden and he was Fabio?"

Teaser:

"Why did Biggie hate Tupac?"

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