Unmaking Hunter Kennedy

Unmaking Hunter Kennedy

by Anne Eliot

After one horrible night of car crashes and cut wrists, followed by weeks in therapy, Hunter Kennedy only wants to get back to work as one of the top teen pop stars in the world.

However, his fairly absent mother has finally decided that he needs a change and a little time to figure out who he is, so she sends him to a relative in Colorado to live in disguise as king of the dorks.

To help him on his quest to dorkdom, Hunter's aunt enlists the help of her neighbors and their teen children, Vere and Charlie.  Charlie's an uber-jock, whose job it is to ostracize Hunter in school.  Vere is the complete opposite: an overly shy, mega dork who can't seem to speak in coherent sentences around boys.  Her job is make Hunter as uncool as possible.

In return for helping Hunter with his disguise, Vere gets a boy to practice talking to and be friends with, while getting tips on how to talk to her crush.

Enter Dustin McHugh, Hunter's new dork identity, BGF (best guy friend) of Vere, and personal tutor and confidante about the boy universe.  

Unfortunately, in his quest to help Vere, he also falls head over heels in love, just as Vere's crush finally takes notice of her.

Final thoughts:  Where my usual complaint is that authors tell too much and don't show enough with just a synopsis of a conversation rather than the conversation itself, Eliot just goes on and on.  Professional actors would have a hard time memorizing the sheer number of monologues in this book.  They all talk WAY too much.  I fell asleep more than once reading this one.  The plot was decent and there were some good moments, but the conversations were just very poorly written and went on far too long.

Rating: 3/5