Grounding Quinn - Stephanie Campbell

Grounding Quinn by Stephanie Campbell
Author: Stephanie Campbell
Date Released: June 15th 2011
Pages: 250 pages
Date Read: July 21 2011
Format: Paperback
Source: Amazon

Summary:

Eighteen-year-old Quinn MacPherson's biggest fear has always been turning out like her mentally unstable mother. (Solving algebraic equations comes in as a close second.)

 
That is, until she meets Benjamin Shaw.

Quinn thinks hooking up with Ben over summer vacation will be nothing more than a quick fling. She can't even commit to a nail polish choice, much less some guy.
Unfortunately for her, Ben is not just some guy. Ben gets her- the real her, flaws and all- and that scares the hell out of her.

When Ben does the unthinkable- tells Quinn he's in love with her- she does what comes naturally. She pushes him away. Ben can only watch from a distance as Quinn lashes out, and punishes him for daring to care about her.

But how far can you push someone, even someone who loves you, before they are gone for good?

From Goodreads

My Review:

Here We Go Again. it looks long but it goes fast ;)

The Story is the most cliché thing you’ll find. Girl afraid to fall in Love. Boy that Loves her. She pushes him away. They get back together. End of the story. A lot of books have this and I LOVE IT! It’s my favorite subject – I think… - and so when I read the summary I knew I had to read it. Sadly, my relationship with this book didn’t turn out nearly as good as I hoped :/ This is not a hate review whatsoever, it’s just a take on my personal opinion. 

The first half of the book was great, it’s the part when the girl – Quinn – and the guy – Ben – fall in love. It was really good, and also when she starts to get scared – Normal – and then they break up – Normal.  I was sure I was going to give it 4 stars. The next half make me think I would give it 1.

They got into this Here We Go Again thing that was a pain in the butt. It went like this:

She did something. Something really bad. He’s pissed and goes away. She begs. He decides to forgive her. She tells him to go away (if the guy is willing to forgive you why the hell do you tell him to go? O.o). He goes to a party with another girl. She yells at him stuff about moving on so fast and him dumping her for the ‘promiscuous’ girl [I say promiscuous to make it sound nicer] (whaaaat? She dumped Him]. Then he begs her again. She pushes him Away. Tells him she hates him. Feels bad afterwards. And blah blah.

There where WAY to many of this episodes and I was LITERALLY rolling my eyes by the end. And it was so much time that passed after they broke up, she says so herself, more than 100 days! It was somewhere around 5 months. So It also seemed unreal that they didn’t moved on, I was seriously – practically begging – for the book to end with both of them moving on and understanding everything.

Another thing was the families. Ben’s mom was a bitch! And not once does he confront her. And also Quinn’s dad is a bitch! He’s sleeping with their neighbor! And her mom is crazy – literary. She has problems with them but also never actually confronts them. In one chapter her dad is being pushy and she takes out the your-cheating-my-mom card. But that’s all, no sorting things out, just a check mate.

Being Scared is one thing, scared to fall in love, to confront someone and to just live your life, and it’s a whole other thing to be weak. Which was what I got form Quinn :/

It had some good points, because she learns some valuable lessons, and by the end it seems that she finally got it, and even though a thousand Here We Go Again episodes happened, I was ready to see her come to her senses and talk to Ben. And when she’s at his house, she suddenly says:

“Never mind, it was stupid of me to come.”

Oh Dear God Kill Me.

She threw everything she had learned, all the things she went through during the book, to the trash with that line. All I wanted to do was grab the book and hit my forehead against it! If it wasn’t because there were 2 pages left I wouldn’t have continued reading it.

I’m not a girl that likes Here We Go Again relationships – been there – and I sort of can’t stand people who feel sorry for themselves, I get it, you get down sometimes – done that – but you get UP again. And the same goes to Quinn, she went through a lot of stuff, but you have got to move on.

So I’m giving it 2 stars. More like 2.5. Which means that it was OK. It had its meaning, but it just didn’t work nearly as well as I hoped. More than that I feel a little crushed, I wanted so bad to love it *Sigh*

If you can stand way to many Here We Go Again episodes then this book is for you :)

"Does it ever make you sad?"
"Does what?"
"The Sunset,"
"Sad? Nah, I think it's peaceful."
"Not to me. I've always found it depressing."
"How so?"
"I guess because it's the end. I hate endings."
"Not all endings are bad though. I think of sunsets more as a clean slate. Besides, they're beautiful... like you"
"Beautiful things never last."

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If you like relationships where they get into Here We Go Again periods often this book is for you.