Review: On the Fence by Kasie West

On the Fence by Kasie West

Shannon McManus (Narrator)

Audiobook

Published August 20th, 2015

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Goodreads

Amazon

For sixteen-year-old Charlotte Reynolds, aka Charlie, being raised by a single dad and three older brothers has its perks. She can outrun, outscore, and outwit every boy she knows—including her longtime neighbor and honorary fourth brother, Braden. But when it comes to being a girl, Charlie doesn't know the first thing about anything. So when she starts working at chichi boutique to pay off a speeding ticket, she finds herself in a strange new world of makeup, lacy skirts, and BeDazzlers. Even stranger, she's spending time with a boy who has never seen her tear it up in a pickup game.

To cope with the stress of faking her way through this new reality, Charlie seeks late-night refuge in her backyard, talking out her problems with Braden by the fence that separates them. But their Fence Chats can't solve Charlie's biggest problem: she's falling for Braden. Hard. She knows what it means to go for the win, but if spilling her secret means losing him for good, the stakes just got too high.

My thoughts…

This is my first Kasie West read/audio it was cute and very predictable.

Sixteen-year-old Charlie (Charlotte) is a classic tomboy being raised by her father and three older brothers, and her fourth brother and neighbor Braden. Charlie's mother died tragically in a car accident when she was six years old leaving her with nightmares and questions after all these years. To avoid the nightmares Charlie exhausts herself throughout the day by running and playing sports with her four brothers. On the nights that Charlie can’t sleep she goes out to the backyard hoping the fresh air will relax her. Braden is there on the other side of the fence trying to deal with his family difficulties. They develop a routine by meeting at the fence and talking to each other during the night, they keep those conversation to themselves during the day. Her family doesn’t know about the fence chats.

Charlie’s father isn’t sure how to raise a daughter and he wants to do it right, he basically reads a book trying to get information. Charlie has no idea, when they have their talks he tells her a co-worker gave him suggestions. The said co-worker is fake, her name is the same as the authors. Charlie sees how uncomfortable her father is talking about ‘girly issues’ that she doesn’t want to burden him with her feelings about the make-up, lacy skirts and having female friends who don’t play sports. She also hides that she is doing make-up modeling from her father.

I enjoyed the relationship she had with her father, brothers and Braden, their rough-housing, teasing, silliness, and their overprotective nature towards Charlie. Her brother Gage and Braden were closer in age to Charlie and their banter was fun to read.

I didn’t care for the fact that Charlie felt like she was plain and just one of the boys. She didn’t believe it or understand it when her female friends and boss told her she was beautiful and asked her to be their make-up model. That is one thing that really irritates me in books. I did like her character development, she grew as the story progressed.

I didn’t care for the ending, it just ended. I felt like there should have been more. This month I will be reading The Fill-In Boyfriend, also by Kasie West, hopefully I’ll enjoy that book more.

Happy Reading -J