Alice's Review: Where I Belong by Gwendolyn Heasley

Paperback: 256 pages
Price: AUD$17.95
ISBN: 9780061978845
Released: 23rd June 2011(Aus)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Author's Website: http://www.gwendolynheasley.com/
Obtained: Bought
Genre: YA
Summary: Meet Corrinne. She's living every girl's dream in New York City--shopping sprees at Barneys, open access to the best clubs and parties, and her own horse at the country club. Her perfect life is perfectly on track. At least it was. . . . 

When Corrinne's father is laid off, her world suddenly falls apart. Instead of heading to boarding school, she's stripped of her credit cards and shipped off to the boonies of Texas to live with her grandparents. On her own in a big public school and forced to take a job shovelling manure, Corrinne is determined to get back to the life she's supposed to be living. She doesn't care who she stomps on in the process. But when Corrinne makes an unlikely friend and discovers a total hottie at work, she begins to wonder if her life B.R.--before the recession--was as perfect as it seemed.

My Rating: 

Beware, there are a few spoilers in this review. Read at your own peril.

My Opinion: I thought this book would be completely different. The cover, for example, led me to believe this would be a cute girl gets cute cowboy type of story. I mean look at that gorgeous cover. How could I not buy this book hoping to be totally engrossed and love the story? It wasn't a love story. Not even close.

Corrinne is basically one of those clichéd rich-bitches from Gossip Girl: shallow, uncaring and pompous. She includes this letter in the beginning going on about how much she's changed and how mean she used to be and blah blah blah. Right. I just wanted to get on to the love story that never happened. Corrinne annoyed me. Something else annoyed me too: the use of 'I am'. Do you know anyone in this world who says 'I am' instead of 'I'm'? Like, no one in this book says 'I'm', it's always 'I am' and it got so damn annoying. And 'you are' instead of 'you're'. Ugh!! Why didn't the editor pick up this totally annoying mistake? I got so sick of reading I am not ready, I am going out, I am sorry and etc.

Those of you who wanted a sweet little love story to pick up your day will not get it. I considered just DNFing this book but I read some reviews on Good Reads about the ending and just decided to plough through it to see what kind of ending it would have. I finished the book twenty minutes ago and I barely even remember the ending; shows how much I was into this book, huh?

The only redeemable characters were Corrinne's grandparents, brother Tripp (who names their kid Tripp?), Corrinne's lovely friend Kitsy and her boyfriend, Hands. I really liked Hands, he seemed like a great guy even though he wasn't really featured a lot. That hottie from work turned out to be a major jerk and Corrinne ended up going for this guy named Bubby in the last two pages. Bubby is the guy who constantly made fun of her, by the way.

I guess a lot of people like the story about the reformed diva but this wasn't my cup of tea. I much prefer a love story and this had great potential to be a love story about a reformed diva, which, truthfully, is an awesome concept, especially if you love cowboys, which I do. 

My verdict: If not for Kitsy and Corrinne's adorable brother, this book would have been a DNF. The characters alone-- excluding Corrinne and her friend Waverly-- made me give this book a two-star rating instead of a one-star. Don't spend money on this book, just borrow it from the library.