The High Season by Judy Blundell (ARC copy - 5/22/18 release date)

"The secret was to let the monster bearing down on you know that you had a path and you were sticking to it. The secret was to take your time."

I received a copy of this book from Goodreads courtesy of Random House in exchange for an honest review. I actually finished this the night before release day. It has a handful of things that I really enjoy in books. Characters with poison personality traits/overall unlikeable characters are abundant throughout The High Season. There's something really fun about reading characters you hate but finding little bits of yourself in them to me. I've seen other reviews where people criticize Ruthie (the main character) and I actually adore her. Judy Blundell writes Ruthie so raw and real. I sympathized with and rooted for her through the entire book, even when her moral compass was totally MIA.

I also love books that have an exploding culmination. Not just a few pieces falling into place, but BAM! everything even minute details of a book all come together. It's tough to do, and even tougher to do well, and I think Blundell did a great job of it.

I also just love sob stories of the rich & famous. Even though the gist of the story is that Ruthie is not one of the ~elite~ there are many characters who are and the woe is me factor is through the roof with some of them.

And lastly - books with art themes! We really don't get enough of them. I think the only other two I've read were The Heist Society by Ally Carter and The Fine Art of Fucking Up by Cate Dicharry (I prefer the former to the later, if you were wondering).

I do mostly read YA, I tend to find "adult" literary fiction or contemporary to border on pretentious and over-the-top soaked in confusing or unrelateable metaphors and I didn't feel that in any way throughout this book. Maybe it's because Blundell is also a YA writer. Whatever the case, I entered to win this book solely based on the cover (gorgeous, right?), and was not so much interested in the synopsis and had never read a Judy Blundell book before. So that being said, I was very pleasantly surprised and will definitely keep an eye out for more books by her.