Book Review: Bully (Fall Away #1) by Penelope Douglas

September 14, 2014

Bully by Penelope DouglasSeries: Fall Away (#1)
Genre: Young Adult, Romance,
SynopsisMy name is Tate. He doesn't call me that, though. He would never refer to me so informally, if he referred to me at all. No, he'll barely even speak to me.
But he still won't leave me alone.
We were best friends once. Then he turned on me and made it his mission to ruin my life. I've been humiliated, shut out, and gossiped about all through high school. His pranks and rumors got more sadistic as time wore on, and I made myself sick trying to stay out of his way. I even went to France for a year, just to avoid him.
But I'm done hiding from him now, and there's no way in hell I'll allow him to ruin my senior year. He might not have changed, but I have. It's time to fight back.

I'm not going to let him bully me anymore. (Goodreads)

Review

There may be spoilers in this review.

Bully has been on my shelf for a year, maybe more than a year. I've always been meaning to read it during the summer of 2013, but never really got around to it since I would come up with excuses not to, like "mmm don't feel like reading angst today" or "I'll read this laaater" but later never came. 

Now Bully revolves around a girl named Tate who gets bullied by her used-to-be-best-friend Jared. Throughout the entire book, I; much like everyone else, wondered why in Zeus' name would a used-to-be-best-friend suddenly bully the other. What happened? How did it happen? Was betrayal involved? For most of the novel, these questions were rumbling around in my head trying to figure out the situation. 

Sad to say that the reasons for Jared bullying Tate was completely immature. I mean, I understand he had to let out his anger towards his mom and dad but seriously. You don't have to bully your best friend to the point of making her cry. I honestly don't understand it. Why would someone bully the person they loved to the point of degrading the other? That's just wrong on so many levels of morality. 

Despite my disapproval of the idea behind all that bullying for so many years, the book was quite intriguing and engrossing but I didn't really feel it much on the good levels. It would be on my mind every so often but as much as I would like to be completely agreeable and into the storyline, I'm just not. 

Nonetheless, I am pretty happy with how it all turned out. Despite the reasons, I am happy that it turned out well in the end. A nice happy ending that contradicts the title. I love it! 

A recommend series to those who are over at least 17 years since it has quite a bit of sexual content, and to those who enjoy teenage angst. This could be the series for you! 

 
 

No comments

Thank you so much for leaving a comment. I always love hearing from you!