The YA's Nightstand: Stupid Girl

Stupid Girl by Cindy Miles

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Synopsis (via Goodreads)

Only fools fall in love...
After her senior year of high school leaves behind nothing but heartache, Olivia Beaumont is sure of this: She’s no stupid girl. She sets out for Winston College, promising herself that she will remain focused on her first and only love – astronomy. But all it takes is cocky sophomore Brax Jenkins and an accidental collision with a football, to throw her entire year off course.
A quick-tempered Southie who escaped the inner city streets of Boston to pitch for Winston, Brax is known to play way more fields than just the baseball diamond. So, when his name is drawn to take part in his fraternity’s hazing dare, Brax eagerly accepts the mission to take Olivia’s virginity. But he doesn’t plan on falling hard for the sweet and sassy Texas girl who sees right through his bad-boy persona.
As Olivia and Brax battle their feelings for each other, echoes of the past year begin to surface. A boy who once turned Olivia’s whole world upside down reappears, and “harmless” pranks wreak havoc. Pretty soon the aspiring astronomer is on the verge of revealing her most difficult, heartbreaking secret. All the while, Brax must wrestle with the irrevocable dare, and Olivia struggles against all logic as she does the one thing only a stupid girl would do: fall in love.

Review

"My heart had begged me to change my mind. But my brain had decided not to ever be stupid again."

Okay, so this book isn't going to change your life. In fact it's stuffed full of NA/YA clichés and the ending was particularly corny. HOWEVER, I honestly couldn't give a fudge! I really enjoyed this book, and it's delinquent Southie, Brax. He's the bad boy with a heart who has a tendency to throw punches first and ask questions later.

Stupid Girl follows Olivia Beaumount as she starts her life over at university. Just before her senior year of high school her boyfriend attacked her, making her last year of high school hell. University is her escape. But it doesn't take two seconds before she's been knocked to the ground by some tattoo's jock and her life gets flipped once again. The story shows Olivia as she tries to come to terms with her growing feelings, as she tries to keep her past in the past and everything else that comes with starting college. All of which is made increasingly harder by the fact her ex - Kelsey - just happens to show up!

One thing I really liked about this was that from the very beginning we knew what Olivia was hiding, what her big secret was. In way too many books you spend half your time trying to figure it out and it just becomes a distraction from the actual book, but with the prologue telling use all we need to know it makes reading the story a lot easier. Like you're living it with Olivia rather that working the with other character's in the story trying to figure her out.

Throughout the entire book I felt this abundance of admiration towards Olivia. She's strong and doesn't take any sh*t from anyone. She has strong principles that kept her motivated and enough common sense not to end up being the clique love-sick girlie girl. Saying that, it's about the only cliché Miles didn't hit.

And then there's Brax. Oh Brax! Tattoo's, a motorbike, cocky attitude & a cute accent... SWOON ALERT! He's the quintessential bad boy and I loved him. He scared me at times, with all the fighting but all in all he was just so damn hot. I can't explain it, he's just... I'm just... yeah.

I did have one or two issues with the story line... I mean out of ALL the universities in America her ex just happens to apply and get into the same one as her? It seemed a little far fetched too me. There was also the fact that we had this weird semi-duel narrative going on. I have no problem with multiple points of view, in fact it seems to be the trend at the moment. But there was only two chapters told from Brax's prospective. If you are going to do this you need to to be closer to 50/50 with the characters otherwise there really isn't much point. The 2 Brax chapters just seemed a tad random. Like the author was bored and wanted to mix it up.

Also I really don't think we needed for Brax to punch quite so many people. I understood why he needed to hit a couple of these douchebags but at one point I think he knocked out 3 DIFFERENT people in one chapter.

But saying all that I really liked this story. I honestly think this is one you'll have to make your own mind up on. The character's were enough for me to enjoy it but the clichés may be too off putting for some. But this was only my two cense. I hope you give it a shot though! Brax is one book boyfriend you don't want to miss out on!