ARC Review: On the Fence by Kasie West

On the Fence

Author: Kasie West

Series: -

Pages: 320

Publisher: Harper Teen

Amazon

Release date: 1^st July 2014

Synopsis. (Goodreads)

She's a tomboy. He's the boy next door…

Charlie Reynolds can outrun, outscore, and outwit every boy she knows. But when it comes to being a girl, Charlie doesn't know the first thing about anything. So when she starts working at a chichi boutique to pay off a speeding ticket, she finds herself in a strange new world. To cope with the stress of her new reality, Charlie takes to spending nights chatting with her neighbor Braden through the fence between their yards. As she grows to depend on their nightly Fence Chats, she realizes she's got a bigger problem than speeding tickets-she's falling for Braden. She knows what it means to go for the win, but if spilling her secret means losing him for good, the stakes just got too high.

Fun, original, and endearing, On the Fence is a romantic comedy about finding yourself and finding love where you least expect.

Review: 4 out of 5 stars

On the Fence is an entertaining contemporary filled with great characters, wonderful humour and a sweet friend to more romance. Kasie West has written another amazing page-turner that held my interest from the very first page.

Charlie Reynolds isn’t a girly girl at all, she is clueless when it comes to anything feminine; be it clothing, interactions or make-up so when she is forced to get a job by her police officer father to pay for a speeding fine she finds herself in strange territory when she commences work at a clothing and accessories store.

On the Fence was a story about self-discovery and acceptance, Charlie misses her deceased mother terribly, has nightmares about her often and finds herself outside having nightly heart to hearts with her long-time neighbour and her brother Gage’s best-friend Braden who has a tough family life of his own and feels more a part of the Reynold’s family.

Charlie was such a great character but did have a few immature, unsure moments, Braden was wonderful and you could tell from their first interaction how he felt about her yet she was oblivious. The secondary characters were all amazing; I adored Charlie’s family dynamic, with three loveable yet protective brothers there were a lot of fun pranks, sporting games and hilarious banter; Charlie’s relationship with her dad and new friends were also great to read about, she was learning a lot about herself and progressed considerably as a character throughout the course of the book. 

I would have loved more sweet moments and interactions between Charlie and Braden, my favourite parts were the stolen touches and gestures, sure they had their brief fence chats but I don’t think we got a lot of fun alone romantic moments with them – it took a very long time for them to come together and to admit their feelings.

On the Fence is an enjoyable feel-good romance; the friends to more tropes are definitely one of my favourites and this one was written extremely well and came without the unnecessary angst. There was a brief moment where Charlie dated someone else but it was a small part of the storyline and was a relationship that didn’t appear at all like it would progress to much which I was relieved about.  

Kasie West is fast becoming an auto-buy for me, her amazing characters and witty, fun dialogue makes for entertaining story-telling, fans of Contemporary YA are sure to love On the Fence.

Thank-you to Harper Teen for the opportunity to read and review On the Fence.

About the author:

(Goodreads) I write YA. I eat Junior Mints. Sometimes I go crazy and do both at the same time. My novels, published through Harper Teen are: PIVOT POINT, its sequel SPLIT SECOND (Feb 2014), and THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US (a contemporary novel). I also have two more contemporaries, ON THE FENCE coming out July 1, 2014, and THE FILL-IN BOYFRIEND coming out the summer of 2015. My agent is the talented and funny Michelle Wolfson.

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