Review: Falling in Love with English Boys

Title: Falling in Love with English Boys
Author: Melissa Jensen
Date Released: December 23rd, 2010
Pages: 293
Rating: 3 out of 5

Description:
Sixteen-year-old Catherine Vernon has been stranded in London for the summer-no friends, no ex-boyfriend Adam the Scum (good riddance!), and absolutely nothing to do but blog about her misery to her friends back home. Desperate for something-anything-to do in London while her (s)mother's off researching boring historical things, Cat starts reading the 1815 diary of Katherine Percival her mom gives her-and finds the similarities between their lives to be oddly close. But where Katherine has the whirls of the society, the parties and the gossip over who is engaged to who, Cat's only got some really excellent English chocolate. Then she meets William Percival-the uber-hot descendant of Katherine-and things start looking up . . .

Review:
I picked up Falling in Love with English Boys because I was in search of a contemporary romance based in England or France, or just any romantic place in the world really, and my school library happened to have just received it.  So, I was excited to delve into it and into the romantic lives of Catherine and Katherine, both separated by two centuries but both had their romantic troubles.

Pretty much, Catherine (aka Cat) has been sent off to London with her mother, when she would rather be back home or in France in search of Orlando Bloom.  During her stay, her mother, who is doing research at the British Museum, gives Cat a journal written by the daughter, Katherine Percival, of Cat's mom's research subject.  From there, readers not only learn about Cat, but the other Kat as well.

The whole entire book is written between alternating blog entries and diary entries.  Essentially, we learn about their love lives.  Cat currently lacks one since she broke up with "Adam the Scum" and was hoping that being somewhere else other than England would help her get one back, while Katherine is starting to go into the courting process and believes that she has found the perfect husband in a poet, but is that the one who's really been sending her all the poems?  This all created a lot of interest in the book because, of course, I needed to find out who Katherine would end up with and what would happen between Cat and William.

I will say that I found both stories rather okay.  Cat as a character was a bit annoying.  She was more on the whiny side, always talking about how it wasn't fun in England.  In my opinion, she just wasn't really embracing the experience.  But, she opened up when she met William because who can resist a hot, wealthy British college student?  She also jumped to conclusions way to quickly.  Katherine wasn't as annoying as Cat, but she was almost there. Her story was interesting, but it didn't hold my attention.  It did get a lot more interesting though when the mystery poems started arriving.

Overall, Falling in Love with English Boys was able to satiate my need for a contemporary romance.  The suspense in who Katherine would end up with, as well as the budding romance between Cat and William just really kept me going.  However, I wasn't the biggest fan of the protagonists.  I just didn't find them particularly likable.  If you are looking for a romance novel though, then look no further!

Cover Review:
I like how they brought in elements of England, with the double decker bus and Big Ben.  I think the whole image of the girl with her foot up and the guy adds a cute touch to the cover.  The font that they used for the title adds a contemporary cuteness to it as well.  If you look at the back cover, it has Katherine doing the exact same thing which also adds to the overall cuteness factor of the cover.

Cleo :)

*Description and cover from goodreads.com
**Review copy borrowed from my school library.