Lambs for Dinner is a YA romance about Skye, your typical moody teenaged girl who is chronically superstitious, and Drew, the mysterious - I'm trying to find a nice way to talk about these characters, but you know what? Fuck that. I hate these characters. I hate this story. And most of all, I hate myself for putting myself through this.

Full disclosure: I know that I'm probably not the target audience for this book (then again, who is?!?! No self-respecting reader should put himself or herself through this, but I hate myself so I did), but I was extremely curious about this book. I'm always curious about books written by local authors, and I thought I might as well give this a shot. I should have shot myself in the head before I had the chance to click the "Check out" button on the ST Press website.

I'm still angry enough that I read this, so this review might get a bit - just a bit - ranty. Just a little bit. Let's look at this on the larger scale and work our way down to the little details, shall we?

Plot
Oops, I mean -
Plot
What happens in this book? Well, there's this girl, whose dad died and she had to move to another estate, which seems to be poorer or something and it seems like that should mean something since the characters kept pointing it out, but it isn't actually important in the story? Anyway, she decides to work at an amusement park, and she meets this ~mysterious~ hot boy named Drew, who's sooooo hot that even the auntie hiring them is drooling over this teenaged boy (every female on this book hits on him, except this one girl who must be gay or something). And he saves her or something, and - and - and there's this scene:

With a move as swift as his punches, he shot out the uninjured hand and curled his fingers around the back of my neck. Ignoring my stiffening body, he pulled me in until our noses were brushing each other.

His breath was hot on my cheeks. "I'll trade that for this, then."

He pressed his lips against mine.

One.

Two.

I couldn't believe I counted.

?????? Whaaaaaaaaa. Look, I've read bad YA romances in my day, but no kiss has ever been as mind-boggling as this one.

Anyway, girl meets boy. Suddenly, they're obsessed with each other. Suddenly, it turns out their pasts are coincidentally connected. Suddenly, there's some weird stalker named Pool, who must have the hots for Drew or something. Suddenly, there's this Steppenwolf thing??

Look, this book is just a plain mess, and it feels like things are happening just as they pop up in the author's head, like "Oh. This would make a good plot point." I wish the editor could have done something to tidy up this mess - isn't this the job of an editor?

Also, there are so many things that are left unresolved: Does Skye learn to handle her grief over her father's death? She was literally blaming herself for his death, which is why she became psycho about superstitions. It appears as if meeting Drew and having ~lurve~ resolves everything. And it still is a slightly psycho thing to be talking to an imaginary friend

Spoiler

even if she turns out to be real - also what the fuck is this "plot twist"?

.

Does Drew learn to deal with his anger? I guess he did? Through the power of ~lurve~?

Look, this plot just bewilders me. Where was the editor through the publication process????

Characters
Bland. And they are written in a way that gives them absolutely no personality, even though it is written in first person. The chapters switch between the POVs of the two main characters, and the only way to distinguish between them is that Drew is often pissed and violent at the drop of a hat, and Skye is talking to her imaginary friend, Puffer.

I'm bored by them, and I don't care about anything that happens to them.

Writing
I understand that writing style can be subjective. Let me just leave you with a few choice samples of the writing:

Mom probably was too, since she poked at her Blackberry several times and gulped down some orange juice while leaping up from the chair.

"Do I?" I laughed at the dour look he shot me. "Don't pout. It doesn't complement your hair."

Heat rose from my neck so that my perspiration felt too cold.

The leather burped beneath me.

He had eyes the colour of danger. It was unlike any hue I had seen before.

I'm just going to stop at 5. These are only within the first 75 pages of this book. It has 327 pages.

I'm honestly so confused by this book. Why was it published? Did the editor really think it was ready to go? Who gave this the green light? Did anyone at ST Press really read this book before it was published?

But I guess my questions will never be answered. Like most of the plot points introduced and subsequently dropped in this book :(