Rowena’s review of Notable (Smith High #3) by Marni Bates.
I take no prisoners…
I’m Chelsea Halloway and I will happily destroy your social life if you mess with me. Just ask anyone. There is no situation I can’t handle. Divorcing parents? No problem. An ex-boyfriend who wants to date Smith High School’s biggest geek instead of me? Just a matter of time before I can make him see reason. At least, until my parents decide to ship me off on a study abroad trip to Cambodia…
Now instead of being admired as the queen of the Notables, I’m stuck with a bunch of college students who don’t take me seriously, and a professor who accidentally landed himself on the wrong side of a drug lord. And it’s up to me to get us all out of the country alive–even the annoying jerk with the green eyes who won’t stop calling me “princess.”
Oh yeah, what could possibly go wrong?
This was one of those contemporary YA’s that is light and fluffy and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Even when you’re in Cambodia and you accidentally stole drugs from the biggest drug lord in all of Cambodia and you’re being chased throughout the city, shot at and hiding in plain sight with a bunch of college kids that think you’re nothing more than a stuck up, stupid high school princess.
That’s how things are for Chelsea Halloway. Her ex-boyfriend Logan doesn’t want to be with her anymore. He’s moved on to the biggest dork in the world and he’s actually happy with her and Chelsea is left with her feelings of rejection from him. To make matters worse, her parents are getting divorced and shipping her off to Cambodia to give her time away from everything and to grow up because they think that she’s on her way to becoming a young adult up to no good.
So Chelsea is already having personal issues at home, the last thing she needs is some stuck up nerd boy trying to give her attitude on this trip. The trip she didn’t want to come on in the first place. But Houston (the nerd boy) does give her attitude and he does make her want to throttle him but he’s also pretty cute and Chelsea finds herself curious about him. Why he cares so much about her Dad, why he cares what she does and stuff like that. As the trip progresses, they butt heads and they bicker but they also get closer and that could be because they’re running for their lives and need to depend on each other to help save their professor.
A lot of this book is cute and a lot of it made me want to smack some sense into both Houston and Chelsea. Chelsea held her own against Houston and I really enjoyed her sense of humor. I also enjoyed getting to know the both of them but there were times when Houston’s attitude toward Chelsea got to be a bit much. I wanted to smack him in the head on multiple occasions. But in the end, I liked him. And I liked him for Chelsea. Chelsea is a lot older than her age and I thought an older guy suited her more than the high school boys like Logan. She just seemed so much older than Logan in this book. I will admit that there were times when I had to put two and two together because I didn’t read the other books in this series but for the most part, this book reads as a stand-alone.
Chelsea came a long way in this book. You can see that she was struggling with a lot of things but she dealt with those issues in a pretty grown up way. I came to really like her character but I could tell that had I read the other books, I probably wouldn’t have liked her much. Still, this was an enjoyable read. One that was quick and cute and sometimes, that’s exactly what you need.
Grade: 3 out of 5
This book is available from K-Teen. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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