Review: This is W.A.R. by Lisa and Laura Roecker

This is W.A.R. by Lisa and Laura Roecker
278 Pages
Release Date: July 2nd, 2013
Publisher: Soho Teen
Genre: Mystery
Level: YA
Rating: 3.5 STARS

Goodreads Summary:

This is not a story of forgiveness...

The mystery of their best friend's murder drives four girls to destroy the Gregory family. Emily Thorne would be proud.

Everyone at Hawthorne Lake Country Club saw Willa Ames-Rowan climb into a boat with James Gregory, the Club’s heir apparent. And everyone at Hawthorne Lake Country Club watched him return. 

Alone.

They all know he killed her. But none of them will say a word. The Gregory family is very, very good at making problems go away.

Enter the W.A.R.— the war to avenge Willa Ames-Rowan. Four girls. Four very different motives for justice and revenge, and only one rule: destroy the Gregory family at any cost. Willa's initials spell the secret rallying cry that spurs the foursome to pool their considerable resources and deliver their particular brand of vigilante justice. Innocence is lost, battles are won—and the pursuit of the truth ultimately threatens to destroy them all.

*WARNING* This is mildly spoilery since there is no way to talk about all the characters without it so if you don't want to be spoiled only read the first and last paragraphs.

MY THOUGHTS:

           Okay so I liked this book. I did, its good and I'm sure some people really enjoy it but I am not one of them. I liked it enough but it was...lacking. It wasn't the plot it was more like...the emotion and motives everyone has. It didn't....match up in my mind and all of it was just straight forward, there was no lying to yourself no slow reveals it was all strait to the point exactly what happened, exactly how they felt all in perfect little boxes. It wasn't amazing to me because I like the spark, I like slow reveal, I like insane crazy amounts of unimaginable emotion. But it was good, don't get me wrong. The plot was really really good and cool and I loved the premise of it I just didn't understand the motives behind everyone's actions. They also all kinda sounded the same to me, like they were told in the same voice. And I didn't notice these things while reading it I only noticed after now that I'm thinking about it again.

        Now Rosa. She...is interesting. She says things and think things that are very straight forward and seem....informative but they...aren't. She just says things that UGH they weren't helpful! Anyways other than that the only thing that bothered me about her was that she was in love with James. I knew she was in love with, she knew she was in love with him but she never said it. She never felt any discomfort towards him. She never was sad about him and she never seemed to care about the fact that she thought the boy she loved killed her friend and she just brushed off her relationship with him altogether while he still pined for her. She dropped him like it was nothing...but she was definitely in love with him and *sigh* I don't know...maybe she wasn't in love with him. Maybe she only mildly liked him BUT SHE STILL SHOULD HAVE FELT SOMETHING! Any person would. Other than that she was a really interesting person and very bookish (although mostly contemporary...and not YA).

       I had no overbearing emotion towards Lina. Lina was Lina, she was cool. Her POV was nice to read from and had some change in the way she thought and there was clear emotion and everything! Lets go to Sloane. Okay Sloane irritates me. A lot. She is just TOO stupid to be real. It disconnected me from the story right after I started getting invested. And she kept thinking about how she never blurted stuff out but she did....like 4 times. Other than that she was pretty cool, she had motives that made sense. OH! And her boy drama thing was stupid and it was amazingly obvious they should be together but they weren't.

     Last, Madge. She had too much emotion that was waaaaay too conflicting. Like she was angry, but then she wasn't really that angry she just said she was...all the time. And her motives pissed me off because the motives we were given were the same she gave her friends but the point of being in a person's head is you see the real meaning. Thats why although I liked having their stories of that night at the end of their sections and Madge's was good there too but we should have been told at least before her friends what Madge's real motives for wanting revenge were. OKAY two more complaints (I know I feel bad but I really did like this book)! So it was cool to see the changes that happened in the characters but they happened (besides Lina) when we were outside of their head. It would have been nice to have seen these changes first hand rather than the static qualities we did see. And finally: WHAT WAS WITH THOSE STUPID THINGS THEY DID??? I MEAN DID THEY REALLY THINK THAT WOULD WORK!?!?!?!? Yeah...

     So I know it doesn't sound like it but I really did like this book. It had an amazing plot line and I liked the way the sections of each person were written.This story was really cool and although it wouldn't be the first book I would recommend if you think it looks interesting I think you should definitely pick it up and check it out because this is really just me being nit picky.