"Life Unaware" Review

Book: Life Unaware

Author: Cole Gibson

Format: ARC

Page Count: Final paperback 320

Publisher: Entangled Teen

My Rating:  ★★★

Synopsis: Regan Flay has been talking about you. 

Regan Flay is on the cusp of achieving her control-freak mother's "plan" for high school success―cheerleading, student council, the Honor Society—until her life gets turned horribly, horribly upside down. Every bitchy text. Every bitchy email. Every lie, manipulation, and insult she's ever said have been printed out and taped to all the lockers in school.

Now Regan has gone from popular princess to total pariah.

The only person who even speaks to her is her former best friend's hot but socially miscreant brother, Nolan Letner. Nolan thinks he knows what Regan's going through, but what nobody knows is that Regan isn't really Little Miss Perfect. In fact, she's barely holding it together under her mom's pressure. But the consequences of Regan's fall from grace are only just beginning. Once the chain reaction starts, no one will remain untouched...

Especially Regan Flay.

       “Life Unaware” is a book that centers on the effects of bullying and social media. To me, it had the potential to be something really amazing, but fell short.
The story itself didn’t seem to progress anywhere and at times lost my full attention. I thought the novel would really focus on the main character developing as a person and learning from her mistakes. While she did in some aspects, I felt like her change didn’t seem really realistic to me. I also didn’t connect well with her situation and didn’t sympathize. The entire situation was brought upon by herself, though that is absolutely no excuse for bullying. I also felt like the contemporary romance that was sprinkled throughout was unnecessary at times.
My largest problem with “Life Unaware” was the extreme unnecessary amount of swearing. Now I am no saint, at times I can cuss like a sailor, however there is a time and a reason to use swearing in a novel and those were not situations that needed cussing. I understand the setting is a private Catholic high school and it is natural to believe teenagers swear like no tomorrow, but we don’t. As a high school who attends a public high school and has been exposed to private Catholic school, teenagers do not swear as much as presented throughout the novel. To me, it seemed like every other sentence had the f bomb.

Despite all of this, the novel over all was pretty enjoyable. I powered through the book to see how it would end and how each of the characters would develop.