Friday, May 23, 2014

Review: The Art of Lainey By: Paula Stokes


Title: The Art of Lainey
Author: Paula Stokes
Published: May 20th, 2014
Source: Edelweiss E-Galley
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads Summary:

Soccer star Lainey Mitchell is gearing up to spend an epic summer with her amazing boyfriend, Jason, when he suddenly breaks up with her—no reasons, no warning, and in public no less! Lainey is more than crushed, but with help from her friend Bianca, she resolves to do whatever it takes to get Jason back.

And that’s when the girls stumble across a copy of The Art of War. With just one glance, they're sure they can use the book to lure Jason back into Lainey’s arms. So Lainey channels her inner warlord, recruiting spies to gather intel and persuading her coworker Micah to pose as her new boyfriend to make Jason jealous. After a few "dates", it looks like her plan is going to work! But now her relationship with Micah is starting to feel like more than just a game.

What's a girl to do when what she wants is totally different from what she needs? How do you figure out the person you're meant to be with if you're still figuring out the person you're meant to be.

My Thoughts:

This one completely and totally surprised me, I will admit I judged the book by the cover a bit and so I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this one as much as I did. The Art of Lainey was sweet and adorable, and it is also about a girl figuring out who she is which just made it even better. Paula Stokes is also writes under the pseudonym Fiona Paul and she wrote the The Eternal Rose Trilogy which I haven’t read because I am not a huge historical fiction fan but, after reading this one I might just check it out.

Lainey Mitchell has the perfect life, an amazing boyfriend, star of the soccer team, and is planning on having the perfect summer. Everything changes when her boyfriend Jason shows up at the coffee shop her parents own and she works at and dumps her in front of everyone. She is in complete shock, but she and her best friend Bianca come up with a plan. On the summer reading list is the book The Art of War, Bianca convinces Lainey to pick it up and tells her it will help them come up with a plan to for her to get Jason back. As the summer progresses, the plan which involves Micah a guy who she works with to pretend to be her boyfriend to make Jason jealous. But, Lainey finds out that maybe who she thinks she is isn’t really who she is. Micah exposes her to so many different things and experiences she never thought she would have seen before.

I came to really love Lainey throughout the story, even though she had the perfect life she wasn’t one of those prissy and mean popular girls. She felt genuine throughout the entire story. I loved getting to along with her through her journey of self-discovery. She realized so many things about herself and her friends that made this story not so shallow and silly. I loved watching her relationship grow with Micah, although they were both using each other it never seemed fake between the two of them and she constantly made me smile. Micah was awesome, he was one of those guys that was perfect example of don’t judge who someone is by how they dress or look.


Overall, The Art of Lainey was so much more than I expected it would be. I loved the added aspect of The Art of War it made the book that much more interesting and fun. If you enjoy contemporaries I definitely recommend this one!

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