Title: Rich Kid in Disguise
Author: Cutelyara
Genre: Teen Fiction
Chapter Count: 6 (Ongoing)
Blurb [sic]: "When they said life complicates love, I didn't believe them until now."
Penelope Hale was described in three BIG words.
California's Prettiest Bachelorette.
Not only was she the daughter of CEO Robbin Hale of HGC Inc., she's what we call every guy's dream and every girl's wish. She was the one people chase, either left or right BEFORE.
Read that?
Escaping from reality, she finds herself as Tiffany Williams, the most hideous of all students in Skyborne High. Little did she know, swooner Jeremy Ford was going to be her hardest challenge yet.
Are you ready to take the mask?
Onto the review
I had two major problems with Rich Kid in Disguise: The level of deus ex machina that seemed to go on and the royal students. Confused? Fret not, we'll get into it, but first onto the other aspects of the story.
I didn't like Penelope as a character. She came off spoiled and childish. On the other hand, I did like Natalia until around chapter six, where I felt her personality did an odd flip. As for Penelope, I know she was meant to be relatable – what kid doesn't want freedom from their parents? I know we were supposed to feel bad for her because she didn't get to live her own life, she felt confined by her father's work, ect. But that's not how anything came off to me through the writing. She was bitter about her money and her grand life, which didn't make me relate with her, it made me angry at her ungratefulness.
The dialogue often had me pausing and took me out of the story. Not only were their a lot of adjective tags that burdened the flow of writing, the dialogue itself confused me because I had never heard people talk like that. It wasn't smooth.
Speaking of the flow and pacing. There was quite a bit of tense switching and missing linking words. The pacing of the chapter breaks were good, with a beginning, middle and end. The grammar could have stood to be better, as there were a lot issues in that regard. The flow was consistent though. With some editing the majority of these problems could be fixed.
Now regarding my major problems with the story. Firstly, the level of deus ex machina, that's to say divine intervention, the book possessed threw me off. For instance, Penelope's ability to make herself look completely different by taking off her make up and putting some concealer/facial powder on to make herself appear more pale. How she managed to get her apartment. Her ability to get passed the guard in her house. Of course, these issues could be fixed on the editing process and while it gave me some pause it didn't keep me from continuing the story.
The thing that I wondered about the most within Rich Kid in Disguise was the school in New York: Skyborne High. The description of the schools place in line with other schools (it was compared to Princeton) makes me think the author doesn't understand how schools are rated in the U.S. Skyborne wouldn't be compared to Princeton, because it's a high school and Princeton is a college.
The royalty of New York confused me to no end. There was mention of bloodlines, clans and gangs (all used interchangeably). They called the son of a powerful CEO the "New York Prince". But how could that be? New York isn't a kingdom and it doesn't have royals. Truth be told, this pulled me completely from the story. It was never explained why there are bloodlines, how those bloodlines came to be and why there's a school seemingly only for these bloodlines. What makes these bloodlines so important and why should I care?
Verdict: The book needs some serious editing. The story itself is fine, with an interesting twist. The setting is left unexplained and so can be hard to follow.
-Reviewed by
