Grounding Quinn by Steph Campbell
June 15, 2011 by Kindle/Nook
eBook-220 Pages
Purchased

Eighteen year old Quinn MacPherson spends most of her time avoiding her mentally insane mother and her business man sleeps with all the neighbors father. The family unit is messed up, even with the love of her older brother and the naivety of her younger brother, Quinn can't escape the dynamics of her failed teenage life. Her parents ignore her most of the time, shout unrealistic expectations and disregard how life really is. How she copes: she pops her moms pills, stays high on a regular basis and displays all the classic signs of a dysfunctional child raised by negligent parents.

When Quinn meets Ben its love at first sight, yes we have insta-love and of course Ben is the level headed good guy who stakes his claim in the book as being the "one" who is going turn Quinn and the her ways around. Sadly for Ben though he doesn't know or understand the extent of Quinn's emotional baggage. Her self esteem is so low she doesn't think she deserves Ben, he's to good for her and Quinn's shovel of doom that stays with her 24/7 slowly but surely digs itself a huge hole to fall into and break Ben's heart in the process. After Quinn's betrayal Ben is mad, he gives it a few weeks but decides he just loves her too much and for the duration of the novel he attempts to win Quinn back as she wishes and washes through every emotion known to man. Can Quinn get over it? Can she set aside the unfairness of her upbringing and finally see her own value? Can she see Ben for what he is, a gift brought into her life to experience happiness? Only Quinn can decide if she will clean up her act and move forward to hope or throw herself in that huge hole and pile the dirt on top.

Beyond that small synopsis, I can't really tell you anymore about this book, outside of Ben chasing Quinn and Quinn running from Ben, there really is no plot. It was nice to see Ben's perspective in the beginning and middle of book, but his POV got lost somewhere towards the end and the reader remains in Quinn's brain while she sorts her problems out. I did not like Quinn, not even at the end when she wakes up a bit from her self depreciating immaturity, I found her extremely unlikable and had it not been for Ben (even though he borderlines on doormat) this might have wound up in the DNF pile. Quinn was selfish, rude, disrespectful and seriously stupid. There is such a thing as low self esteem caused by insecurity and then there's something called jackass syndrome, I think Quinn suffered from the latter.

Grounding Quinn in a nutshell: She loves him, she's happy, he says he loves her, she freaks, she betrays, he's still loves her, she hates him, she wants him to go away, he go's away, he go's to a party with his X, she shows up and has a freak out, she wants him back, he wants to come back, he loves her, she pushes him away again, but he can't have anyone else, she hates him, she loves him, another party, she wants him back, he ignores her but maybe he will come back and repeat cycle until the very last page. That nonsense was powerfully irritating, combined with a few other things that rubbed me the wrong way I found more problems dealing with the story then actually enjoying it.

In the end, Grounding Quinn offered a fast read that Im not sorry I read and I would really love to try this author again, but unfortunately while I found the writing very much enjoyable, the story line overall did not work for me.

Rating

Recommended to readers 17&up and contains: Graphic and crass (likely to offend) language, sexuality, depression, teen drinking and drug use.

2.5/5- New Adult (Mature-YA)- Contemporary