Review: The Distance Between Us by Kasie West

Title: The Distance Between Us
Author: Kasie West
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: July 2nd 2013
Pages: 320
Genre: Young Adult contemporary
Source: Purchased
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Seventeen-year-old Caymen Meyers studies the rich like her own personal science experiment, and after years of observation she’s pretty sure they’re only good for one thing—spending money on useless stuff, like the porcelain dolls in her mother’s shop.

So when Xander Spence walks into the store to pick up a doll for his grandmother, it only takes one glance for Caymen to figure out he’s oozing rich. Despite his charming ways and that he’s one of the first people who actually gets her, she’s smart enough to know his interest won’t last. Because if there’s one thing she’s learned from her mother’s warnings, it’s that the rich have a short attention span. But Xander keeps coming around, despite her best efforts to scare him off. And much to her dismay, she's beginning to enjoy his company.

She knows her mom can’t find out—she wouldn’t approve. She’d much rather Caymen hang out with the local rocker who hasn’t been raised by money. But just when Xander’s attention and loyalty are about to convince Caymen that being rich isn’t a character flaw, she finds out that money is a much bigger part of their relationship than she’d ever realized. And that Xander’s not the only one she should’ve been worried about.

I was really excited to finally read a book by Kasie West; I'd heard great things about her, and I was in the needed of a fluffy romance, so this looked ideal. But unfortunately, nothing about this book worked for me. I was annoyed with the writing and storyline about 50 pages in, and it just went downhill from there. I thought about giving up so many times but I hate DNFing books so I pushed on, hoping it would getter, but the story and characters just continued to annoy me.

So many elements of this story stilted and unrealistic to me, especially the romance. Guys just keep walking into the creepy doll store where Caymen works and immediately falling in love with her!? I could not get into the romance at all; it's not quite insta-love, since Caymen is very resistant of dating Xander at first, but it is insta-hanging out all the time and suddenly seeing each other all the time in a very forced and unrealistic way. Xander is somehow just automatically in love with Caymen after seeing her once, and they feel this deep connection because neither of them knows what they want to do after high school, when.... does anyone really know that?? Basically every twist and turn of their relationship was overly dramatic, unnecessary, and unrealistic. The message about how not all rich people are bad was also very frustrating, because... why?? 

***SPOILERS IN THIS PARAGRAPH***
The plot twist towards the end made me even more irritated with this book. After all this discussion of how hard it is for Caymen and Xander to date because they come from such different worlds and because Caymen hates rich people, it turns out that Caymen's family is actually rich too; she just didn't know that because her mother is estranged from her rich grandparents. The way she finds out about this seemed super unrealistic (she just happens to run into her grandparents, whom she has never seen before even though they live in the same small town as her!??, at Xander's family's party??) and the fact that everyone just makes up after was just a giant mess.

The story, the characters, the romance, the writing... pretty much every element of this story annoyed me, and reading this book was a very frustrating experience to me. Will need to find something else to satisfy my need for a fluffy YA romance with endearing characters and some romance I will actually want to root for...