Review: The Unwritten Rule

Book: The Unwritten Rule
Author: Elizabeth Scott
Published: March 16, 2010

Everyone knows the unwritten rule. You don't like your best friend's boyfriend.
Sarah has had a crush on Ryan for years. He's easy to talk to, supersmart, and totally gets her.Lately it even seems like he's paying extra attention to her. Everything would be perfect except for two things: Ryan is Brianna's boyfriend, and Brianna is Sarah's best friend. Sarah forces herself to avoid Ryan and tries to convince herself not to like him. She feels so guilty for wanting him, and the last thing she wants is to hurt her best friend. But when she's thrown together with Ryan one night, something happens. It's wonderful...and awful. Sarah is torn apart by guilt, but what she feels is nothing short of addiction, and she can't stop herself from wanting more...

General Overview: I love Elizabeth Scott! She's such a talented writer, and her books, to me, are very realistic and she is unafraid to tell the truth, no matter how ugly.

Characters: Wow. Scott really brought these characters to life. I could identify with Sarah, and I thought Ryan seemed sweet (if not a little short on words). Honestly, I wish Sarah had been a little more gutsy, and Ryan too. If only they'd just stood up for themselves from the beginning, they wouldn't have all the drama they found themselves faced with. And oh my god, I hated Brianna with a fiery passion. She annoyed me so.so.so.much. But it takes a talented writer to create a character that a reader can both hate and sympathize with, and that's exactly what happened to me with Brianna.

Plot: The plot wasn't the best part of the novel for me. It seemed a little repetitive at times. Sarah and Ryan's relationship seemed to move in some sort of cycle, until they finally found it in themselves to get together. Don't get me wrong, I didn't not like the plot; I just thought that it could've been tweaked a little from that typical sort of story and could've kept me guessing a bit more than it actually did. The ending, however, very much took me by surprise. I thought that it was sad, yes, but sometimes things in life really do end that way, and even though Sarah didn't think so, I think she did get a happy ending -- she just didn't see it that way.

Writing: Scott's writing is absorbing and neat. I loved how she didn't shy away from the uglier side of people and relationships, but instead embraced it completely and brought it to full attention. I hate it when, in books, the author sugarcoats the less appealing aspects. Elizabeth Scott, however, is most definitely not one of those writers.

Cover: I like it! I think it's cute, and it suits the book perfectly. I've noticed a sort of pattern in Scott's books' covers -- you never see the models' faces, and I think that fits for the type of book she writes.

Overall: 4 out of 5 stars