Aug 20, 2014

Review: On the Fence by Kasie West

Title: On The Fence
Author: Kasie West
Publisher:  HarperTeen
Publication Date: 7.1.2014
Pages: 320
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Series: No
Source: ARC from publisher

Rating: 5 Stars

Summary (from Goodreads):
She's a tomboy. He's the boy next door…

Charlie Reynolds can outrun, outscore, and outwit every boy she knows. But when it comes to being a girl, Charlie doesn't know the first thing about anything. So when she starts working at a chichi boutique to pay off a speeding ticket, she finds herself in a strange new world. To cope with the stress of her new reality, Charlie takes to spending nights chatting with her neighbor Braden through the fence between their yards. As she grows to depend on their nightly Fence Chats, she realizes she's got a bigger problem than speeding tickets-she's falling for Braden. She knows what it means to go for the win, but if spilling her secret means losing him for good, the stakes just got too high.

Review:
Few things make me as happy as a new Kasie West book. And you don’t want to know what I had to do, the hoops I jumped through, and the groveling required to get this book in my hands. So you must be thinking, “Then Hannah, why haven’t you reviewed it before now?” I would love to say it’s because I didn’t want my review to get lost amongst the shuffle of glowing reviews or because I wanted to wait for the buzz to die down before resurrecting it.

Truth is I’m having a hard time explaining just why I loved this book so hard.

It’s not secret I am a hardcore Kasie West fan. I have been since I read her debut almost two years ago, but ON THE FENCE is just a special kind of awesome. This book hit my heart in all the right places.

I loved Charlie. I loved how adorably clueless she was, how stubborn, how naïve, how innocent, and how jaded. She’s a total mix of all these things and she is a fantastic character to move through a book with. While I loved her interactions with Braden, I especially loved her time with her family. The entire Reynolds family unit was a total joy to read.


This book is a fun, feel-good read. It’s the perfect book to read at the tail-end of summer. I can’t recommend enough that people pick up this awesome gem of a book.

7 comments:

  1. This is an adorable book! I think I like contemporary romance Kasie West even more than paranormal dystopian Kasie West. ;) I also liked that it's linked to characters in her first book, a bit like Miranda Kenneally's contemporary romances.

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  2. Yesssssssssssssss. LOVED THIS BOOK!!! I adored Charlie as well, and I loved how her relationship with Braden was portrayed. I think it would be equally hard, if not harder, to turn a friendship into a romance than it would to start a romance from scratch. Knowing someone that well causes complications that being strangers doesn't:)

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  3. I'm glad you loved it Hannah! I love both of her contemporaries so far, but I still haven't read Pivot Point. I need a longer books next time! I feel like Charlie and Braden needed more time together (or maybe I just needed more time with them!)

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  4. I KNOW!! Isn't this an adorable story? Charlie's fabulous in her cluelessness and the brothers are fantastic. Loved it.

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  5. A fun, feel good read? I NEED THIS. I've heard mixed things about this one, but I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed it. Great review, Hannah!

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  6. I definitely need to read this! Ordering it from my library right now. Thanks for the reminder. I've heard nothing but wonderful things about it. Liza

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  7. It's always hard for me to review her books, too, as there's just something so amazing about everything she puts out :) I adored this one, and I'm already counting down the days to The Fill-In Boyfriend. Amazing review, Hannah!

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