Book Blog #85: Love? Maybe by Heather Hepler

Title: Love? Maybe
Author: Heather Hepler
# of Pages: 267 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Romance, Realistic Fiction
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆
Synopsis: Just because Piper's birthday is on Valentine's Day does not mean she's a romantic. In fact, after watching her father and then her stepfather leave, she's pretty sure she doesn't believe in love at all. Then her friends concoct a plan to find them all Valentine's dates, and somehow Piper finds herself with the most popular guy in school. But true love never follows a plan, and a string of heartfelt gifts from a secret admirer has Piper wondering if she might be with the wrong guy.  
In this heartwarming romance, true love is more than a maybe - and it might be closer than you think.
Review: There goes four days of my life that I'll never get back.

I bought this book months ago because it was on sale (probably sometime after Valentine's Day). I didn't like the cover at all; it's too plain for me. However, I have to give it some credit; it represents the book well (no sarcasm).

What really ticked me off was our protagonist, Piper. The best way to describe her is how the supporting characters describe her: cynical (a word that her friends are constantly calling her) and stupid.

"'For such a smart girl, you sure can be stupid sometimes'" (Hepler 243).

This quote does a great job of reflecting my thoughts of Piper. Hepler tries to portray Piper as a smart girl who always seems to have homework that she needs to finish, etc., etc. Yet she gets caught texting in class (if she's going to text, at least be smarter about it) and is missing stuff relating to her love life that even her friends have picked up on!!! It's very frustrating when the protagonist is completely oblivious.

The second major dislike I have for this book is the writing style. Sentence structure was awkward at times to the point where it disrupts the flow of the plot. Hepler's character development is sloppy; she was still developing Piper's mom half way into the book!

To sum it all up, this book was bad. I would not read it again, nor would I recommend it to anyone.