I wanted to like this book, and while I enjoyed some things about it...ultimately it didn't really work for me. Gracie was a VERY unlikeable character, which made it so hard to root for her. I know her prickliness was supposed to be charming because we, as readers, could see through it, but I just found her obnoxious. Wade, on the other hand, was adorable but I wanted better for him than Gracie. I've seen some other reviews that felt they didn't talk like high schoolers and seemed far more mature, but I personally don't agree with that. Their tone and language seemed pretty on par with the teens I know, so that was fine for me. It really just was that I didn't like Gracie. Other readers might not have that issue, so I'm sure the book will find its audience.

**Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!**

I'm sorry nope nope nopity nope. We open on a FIFTEEN year old saying her and her teacher are soulmates based on high fives and smiley faces on tests?!?! Nothing against the author, but the first chapter alone would have made me stop reading if I was a teenager.
I didn't like the MC at all, she was so selfish and way too violent (and not in a badass chick kinda way) to be likable.
Wade, the love interest, was just eh.
I was just bored throughout this read, I don't know if it was the writing or the characters but I ended up skimming a lot of it just to get to the end.

Being a teenager can be difficult and for Grace it is. She attends a low level boarding school, does not have much of a relationship with her father, not many friends and is feeling adrift.
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Her world changes when she uses her slingshot to protect the new kid from the class bully.
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Wade is a bit adrift himself but together they feel comfortable and in sync until, like being a teenager, life gets complicated.
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The ups and downs and twists and turns of being a teenager is conveyed here as I rooted for Grace as she is on her path to self discovery.
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Thank you to #NetGalley and #Wednesdaybooks for an arc in exchange for an honest review

I'm just going to be blunt and honest: this book is a trainwreck. I have no idea where the author was going with this book and what she was trying to do, but it did not land well. Just ... yikes. 

The first chapter, the very first chapter, is a 15 year old girl, Grace, talking about how she's in love with her biology teacher and that she thinks he loves her back. Until he introduces his fiance to her and she gets her heartbroken. 

Okay, wtf. Listen, I get it, crushes on teachers isn't a completely taboo thing, so long as the crush is 100% with reality and there's no further thoughts or actions taken on it. (Aka, the person can acknowledge having a crush on a teacher is not ok and they can move past any feelings and take no further claim or action.) But this, this was disturbing. The fact that Grace is obsessed with her teacher and acts as though they are truly in a relationship is so disgusting. And a little later on in the book we have another high school student encouraging her to go after him and make him know that she wants him. EW. Even as satire, this is still a terrible message to teenagers and children, and honestly this wasn't written like satire. There was no hidden joke between the author and the reader, this was pure encouragement and that's what seriously prompted me to put this book down. 

And don't get me started on the bullying. Our main character is definitely an anti-hero - she's crass and rude, only going so far as to care for herself, and thinks that everyone is either a bitch, an asshole, or a loser. As a certified bitch my freshman year in high school, I could kind of relate to this girls thinking in terms of her not caring about making friends or wanting to do her own thing, but the fact that she condones bullying and actively uses it as her "protection" from other students, is downright shameful. And when Wade steps into the picture, she's quit to brush him aside and put him down after he was nothing but nice and genuine with her. 

This book shows the ugly side of high school and then says "this is totally fine and normal, there's nothing that needs to be changed here". The fact that the author is condoning this behaviour made me so uncomfortable and based on the reviews, it doesn't get better. Grace never learns her lessons, she never has a realization on how she treats people, and it's messed up. 

Throw in the fact that Grace actively bullies her roommate, by loudly making fun of her interests, like her love for showtunes, is so wrong. And there's even a scene where she steals her roommates headphones and then gets mad at her when her roommate asks for them back. And Grace does the same thing towards her mother. She is rude and mean to her mom unnecessarily and it shows that Grace's bitterness is the only personality trait she seems to have. It's like she was trying to make Grace this "I'm too cool" kind of person, but she ended up coming across like a bitch. 

I don't know what the author was going for, but this book was an absolute train wreck. Read at your own risk.

Slingshot is a contemporary young adult and also the debut of Mercedes Helnwein.

Gracie goes to a boarding-school and has a huge crush on her teacher because of his perfect hair. And although this relationship seems impossible, Gracie takes her chance and it ends in failure. Her teacher is engaged, and Gracie doesn’t know what to do anymore. She shuts herself off from the crowd and can only go to her best friend, and the two soon come to the conclusion that it is easier to find a new love when you are more self confident. When she accidentally saves the new boy Wade, a whole new world opens up for her. Wade accepts Gracie as she is and they have many adventures together. What if Wade is her true love?

The theme of love is central in Slingshot. In addition, important sub-themes are friendship and bad decisions. Because Gracie does not fit in well with the rest, she is very insecure. However, this causes Gracie to be submissive to her friends, and this puts her on the trail of some bad ideas without thinking about the consequences. What will Gracie have done, and what are the consequences?

The first part of the book is about Gracie’s crush on the teacher and when I read this I thought Gracie was a very naive character and I didn’t enjoy reading the story either. As the story progressed and Wade came into the picture, the story picked up speed and began to read more and more nicely. However, Gracie remained quite naive which made me feel bad about her.

Mercedes Helnwein has written a totally unique story with Slingshot that you as a reader must lie. You really have to bite through the first part, as the story between Gracie and Wade is well worth it. However, I can no longer give this book as 3.5 stars due to the fact that 1/3 of the book was very slow and I also could not recognize myself well in Gracie.

This is a very emotional read in that it hits a lot of the lonely teenager vibes that have always touched all of my soft spots. Even with Grace being overly dramatic at the beginning, it just feels true to the life of a teenager from a rather unconventional home.
Helnwein does a phenomenal job of making it feel like you're really in Grace's shoes as her life begins to change once she opens herself up to friendship and love. The relationship she had with Wade is idyllic and a dream, which makes the intrusion of reality into it that much more painful but necessary. I really liked how Grace grows as a person in the short timeframe of the story and that Helnwein is not afraid to touch on difficult topics with a hint of nonchalance that makes them just another part of the story and what drives the characters.
Overall, this is a wonderfully written, emotional story about growing up and learning from the hits that entails. A definite recommend.

Many emotional thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the early read!

Unfortunately, this book wasn't for me, and I put this one aside at 20% due to content concerns. I found the premise of this book to be difficult to believe in its execution, and had significant concerns related to the humor used. Before I put this book aside, there was concerning content related to Grace's crush on a teacher, a joke about rape, a joke about mental health, and a fat joke.

Rating based solely on the part of the book that I read.

Unfortunately this is a DNF for me, as an educator the 15 yr old crush on the teacher just turned me away. Others may like this book but it just was not for me.

I can't give this book a real rating, I had to DNF it. The beginning was just so peculiar with Grace being in love with her teacher and actually verbalizing it to him and then have sex dreams about him. Maybe I'll be able to try again at another date, but right now this book isn't for me.

This book was such a disappointment. After seeing this author being compared to Rainbow Rowell and John Green I had high hopes for a new voice in YA but this book was not for me. The only reason I finished it was so I could post this review.

I am torn with how I feel about this book. Slingshot is a grittier YA rom-com. It was a super easy read, full of wit and complicated situations, and it does a great job of exploring teenage emotions and experiences. I just don't know if I liked Gracie. She is super sarcastic and tough with a mouth like a sailor. Her inner monologues could be really funny, and I loved that I could see through this tough front she put up to the world into her softer insides. Teenage emotions are intense and sometimes their reactions are irrational- I totally feel that and can relate. However; Gracie took this to a new level. So much so, that I found it hard to empathize with her and found some of her actions appalling. With all that said, even though I didn't really like her, she intrigued me and I was definitely drawn into her story. She goes through a lot in this book from heartbreak, to losing her virginity, to learning how to be a friend, to discovering what love is, to dealing with family drama, to peer pressure, bad advice, and popularity, all while trying to figure out who she wants to be. Her relationship with Wade, who is awesome, was very sweet and they had fantastic banter. Seeing the passionate intensity of these two teenagers discovering first love together was endearing, and I loved seeing the effects it had on Gracie's life. Slingshot surprised me in a bunch of different ways, and it left me with a strong bitter-sweet feeling that still kind of lingers days later.

I didn’t enjoy this book. It’s about Grace who goes to boarding school and one day saves a new kid from being bullied with her slingshot. Grace has a crush on Wade which makes her want to save him and live her life. I was super excited to read this book because I have seen so much hype on Instagram about it. When I started the book, it was great and I was hooked into it but then the book went downhill. I didn’t enjoy the writing really and the author promised their will be humor in the book which I didn’t find. I did enjoy the setting which is the boarding school but the pacing was very slow for this contemporary novel. I felt that this book was more about sex and love then anything else.

This book is written from Grace’s POV. She was a very bland character and I didn’t enjoy her character. She is 15 years old but her character wasn’t written for that age but more of an age of an 18-19 year old. Then there are the side characters. Most of them were older then Grace and I thought they were bad influences. Most of the characters encouraged each other to have sex and I felt that it wasn’t appropriate to add a 15 year old character in the book because younger readers might get encouraged for it. The romance in this book wasn’t that good and I wish it was better since it was supposed to be a contemporary romance novel.

Towards the ending, I didn’t really care for the book and just wanted to get it over with. There were some things I liked about the book like the setting and the first 20-30 pages but that was it. This book just wasn’t for me at all.

Title: Slingshot
Author: Mercedes Helnwein
Pub. Date: April 27, 2021
Rating: DNF @ 5% / 1

This will be a short, spoiler free review. Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Y’all I wanted to like this one.
When the NG widget hit my inbox, I got really excited. It sounded so cute, and we all know that I’ve been loving YA contemporary lately.

Pretty much by page 2 I was not interested – I do not like illegal relationships – even if they’re 100% one sided and basically created by one person. They make me feel gross, and I can’t even imagine being attracted to a teacher. So that’s a huge strike against this book, for me.

I also completely missed the fact that the MC is 15. That was so long ago for me, I legit cannot relate, and I don’t really like young MC’s. Though, she doesn’t act 15. She acts like an incredibly jaded and vulgar adult and I did not like her.
I can’t express that enough.
The MC is terrible. She’s a brat. She’s mean. She’s judgmental as hell (which might be the most accurate thing about her designated age). She’s just so incredibly annoying and above it all – and that’s only in the first 5% of this book.
The way she describes people – treats people. Her description of her own mother is nothing but an attack under the guise of “well she’s pretty, but crazy”.

I really hope I wasn’t this much of an asshole at 15. My parents would have whooped my ass for behaving the way she does.

At this point I had to pause, and I went to Goodreads. I wasn’t enjoying myself and I needed to find out if it was worth reading on.
Clearly it wasn’t.
I tried though. I did try to give it a fair chance, but I just found the MC to be so unlikeable, I couldn’t bear it.

There’s also a bunch of weird language choices – all in the effort to make the 15-year-old MC seem older, jaded and again, above it all. Woe is her. I wasn’t a fan of the writing style either, and it just wasn’t worth forcing myself to read through it. The analogies were everywhere, and there were strange descriptive choices as well.

I’m bummed that this was a miss for me.
I would recommend checking out some other reviews for this before diving in. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be missing much.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for allowing me to review this e-arc.

It took me so long to finish this book, I never felt the need to pick it up and that's an issue. The only redeeming parts were honestly the side characters, by the middle Derek was the 'best' and that's saying a lot, I cared so much more about them then I did the main's. I understand crushes but the length's Grace goes into thinking that her and her teacher are remotely in some kind of relationship is just worrisome. I did like the last 20ish pages and the fact that it seemed like some (very little) growth happened.

I love a good boarding school book, but this was really disappointing. I'm all about dislikable characters, but Grace was the worst. And she treated dear, sweet Wade like garbage. This had so much potential to be good, but it took the dramatics to a whole new level.

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

So I’m going to be honest... this book wasn’t for me. I didn’t enjoy it. I felt myself skimming just to see if there was a point or purpose. I’m sorry I can’t really give a better review than that.

This book is so good and wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I immediately loved Gracie and found her internal dialogue to be so refreshing. Once she started interacting with other students at her boarding school, the book really took off and I couldn't put it down. I love the boarding school setting but this one was particularly unique and had its own world and voice. I definitely recommend this to fans of Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld; I recently re-read that book and not only does it hold up but Slingshot feels like a modern Prep to me.

Slingshot comes out next week on April 27, 2021, and you can purchase HERE! I definitely recommend this one!

He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me over so that my head ended up in his neck and I could smell his skin, which smelled nothing like a girl's skin. He just held me like that without saying anything else. It nearly killed me, because it was the cleanest form of affection I had ever felt from someone other than my mother. It wasn't a "move." It was just a gesture. It was one of those sudden ways in which he was beyond his years.

Slingshot is a novel that I didn't care for. While the writing was competent, the protagonist is a rather terrible 15-year-old young woman who reads like a person who's older, and quite mean. She fantasizes about and claims to love her much older teacher, cusses him out for having an adult relationship, then proceeds to be jealous with her new friend/boyfriend, and slut-shame a girl who tries to be friends with him. The book is aimed, supposedly, at the Young Adult demographic, but there's enough adult content in here to take Young out of the equation. It's okay to write a darker or edgier character, but there should still be a moral lesson or redeeming quality about flawed protagonists if the story is targeted at teenagers. Because the protagonist, Gracie, is continually rude or mean to others, and engages in immoral and illegal behavior continually, I can't recommend this book for youth.

I wanted so much to love this book. It was witty and comical at some parts but a lot of it was more inappropriate and unnecessary. Being "in love" with your teacher is a plot point I couldn't get past. Especially with current events and inappropriate relationships between students and teachers. Some characters were just plain mean and the author tried to make it comical. I'm not sure this is a book I will be recommending.

I had to sit with this one for a bit before I could fully write a review because this one was definitely a little bit all over the place.

I appreciated the teenage angst that dripped through the writing and overall storyline, and did feel like Heinwein captured the teenage high school experience pretty well. However, the book starts with this “in love with my teacher” storyline and as a teacher, I just got a super uncomfortable vibe from the start. As a result, I had to force myself to pick up the book as I continued and considered not finishing it a few times.

I did feel like the second half of the book, from the point where Grace spends her spring break at school onward, was much more cohesive than the first half of the book. There was a solid and consistent storyline from that point on, and even though Grace was extremely unlikeable, she begin to endear herself to me a bit at this point and I felt like she became more humanized and understandable toward the end as well.

The end of the story bummed me out a bit as well, as I was hoping for a different one. However, I think that Heinwein handled the ending with care and I do understand why it had to end the way it did, even if it wasn’t the ending I wished for. In the end, this story redeemed itself for me and it was okay, but a little too shaky for me overall.

A huge thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for my free electronic ARC in exchange for my honest review.