Title: Finding Kyler
Author: Siobhan Davis
Series: The Kennedy Boys, #1
Genre: NA, Romance, High School
Source: ARC, publisher, author
Rating:
Two fractured hearts and a forbidden love they can’t deny. You shouldn’t want what you can’t have… Faye Donovan has lost everything. After her parent’s tragic death, she’s whisked away from her home in Ireland when an unknown uncle surfaces as her new guardian. Dropped smack-dab into the All-American dream, Faye should feel grateful. Except living with her wealthy uncle, his fashion-empire-owning wife, and their seven screwed-up sons is quickly turning into a nightmare—especially when certain inappropriate feelings arise. Kyler Kennedy makes her head hurt and her heart race, but he’s her cousin. He’s off limits. And he’s not exactly welcoming—Kyler is ignorant, moody, and downright cruel at times—but Faye sees behind the mask he wears, recognizing a kindred spirit. Kyler has sworn off girls, yet Faye gets under his skin. The more he pushes her away, the more he’s drawn to her, but acting on those feelings risks a crap-ton of prejudice, and any whiff of scandal could damage the precious Kennedy brand. Concealing their feelings seems like the only choice. But when everyone has something to hide, a secret is a very dangerous thing.
MY THOUGHTS
This is a high school contemporary romance book with the usual alpha rich boys, family and hierarchy. Our protagonist, Faye is an Irish girl from Ireland who lost her parents in a car crash, caused by a drunken driver. And according to her mother’s will, until she turned officially 18 (she’s currently a senior), she must stay with her uncle who she never knew existed, back in America. The uncle (James) has seven sons (Kaden, keen, Kyler, Kalvin, Keanu, Kent, and Keaton), a beautiful wife (Alex), and is the owner of the world-wide phenomenal company, Kennedy Apparel. The family (of course) is a perfect package, translation: the dad and all the sons are really, really hot. This of course will lead up to this whole spoiled-rich-kids-social-hierarchy at school thing and bullying, because our protagonist here is not the ‘usual’ newcomer, she’s hot, she’s different, and she’s living with the Kennedy boys (the royals of the school). This all got the girls to die of jealously. Which I got a whole lot of headaches reading (and eye rolls).
And by this point, if you have been catching up with my blog a lot (or if you already read that book, you would have already realized that this sounds extremely familiar to another book, one which was actually one of my favorite contemporary romances of all time: Paper Princess by Erin Watt.
If you have read Paper Princess even just once, then read the first five chapters of this book. You’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. The first paragraph itself had me like ‘holy shit’.
So, it should be understandable that I have quite the expectations for this book.
I’m going to be doing a lot of comparisons between Paper Princess and Finding Kyler here, because both books have the same idea, and Paper Princess would be used as a good example of certain factors, which I’ll be using it to explain of Finding Kyler can improve.
The romance between Kyler and Faye for me is a little too faced paced. It was just…that. Generally, it wasn’t as well written as Paper Princess, and didn’t get the same reactions from me. I also don’t like how the moment Kyler met Faye, he saw ‘her pain’ and she saw his. Generally, this just resulted me in not getting so into their relationship and his ultimate confession to Faye at the end of the book kind of cheesy.
And then there’s the whole ‘they cousins’ thing. And the cliffhanger.
What. The. Actual. Hell.
I already wasn’t able to take their relationship too seriously because they’re related. I’m trying so hard not to judge because I think some people mind be offended (touchy subject at this time), and then James revealed Kyler was her half-brother…
I overall still gave this book four stars because A, this book is just like Paper Princess, and B, it’s generally a really good book that I really enjoyed reading. It has flaws, but I did like Faye as a character (although there wasn’t exactly anything that makes her different from other heroines in this genre), but I would’ve loved to see a little bit more development in relationships and character growths in this book (besides from the relationship between her and Kyler. Paper Princess was amazing because it was fantastic how the author showed us how Ella grew on the Royal family, how she made their lives so much better, and gotten accepted in general.
I also liked Alex. I did like her when I first saw her, then disliked after hearing how she doesn’t want to associate with the help, then re-liked her because she hasn’t done anything ‘real bitchy ‘yet. James however…my first impression when reading him was ‘why is there so many explanation marks’. I understand that the author was trying to make him ‘light and likable’, but keeping the dialogues and just removing the explanation marks can still keep the conversation light and friendly without ‘overdoing it’.
In the next book, I’m definitely not hoping for it, but I don’t think I’ll be liking James and Alex from the next book, judging from his reaction to Kyler and Faye’s relationship. After all, he and his wife are rich snobs because they are really into keeping up an image. So, I’ll be looking for that.
The drama level in this book is the same as Paper Princess (if not more). It does not lack anything. But what I do like about this book that Paper Princess does not exactly have is the real mystery factor. From the first book (and we didn’t even know about this until like, near the end of the book), someone has been seriously messing with them. And I don’t think it’s Addison. This forced me to put my thinking hat on, and it is a thing that made this book more unique, and separated it from other books in this genre category.
So all of this is why I gave it four stars. I did critic it, but take note I also really enjoyed it. I would be very looking forward to continuing the series.
