Unlovable: Book One of The Port Fare Series Paperback – March 10, 2012

I liked the story, it was entertaining and the plot progressed well. I disliked how the emotional side of the characters was shown, it was a little weak and unconvincing. Especially how Maggie reacted to her mother and with her peers. Her personality was off. The plot was strong and progressed perfectly with the timeline and relationships. I think what ruined it for me, was in that last 2% of the book. But thats a personal reason so I wont get into it.I liked the idea of undercover cop and girl who has trust issues. That whole show down was done well. Minor spoiler alert, bur common sense it will happen in the book at some point.

Unlovable was a great YA Romance with enough edge to satisfy an adult! After finishing it, I found out that it was optioned for a movie and I can definitely see why.My heart broke into a million little pieces while reading about Maggie's childhood. She is such a bright, beautiful person but she is mistreated and misjudged at school because she is too skinny, doesn't have the best clothes and doesn't socialize much. Her classmates don't know that her mom has been an alcoholic all her life and Maggie has gone through years of emotional abuse because of it. She gets little food and barely has enough money to keep the electricity on in their trailer and buy a loaf of stale bread and cheap peanut butter. She feels unlovable and has convinced herself that she can never be loved. The time I spent in her head was very depressing!Seth is a little bit older, twenty-one to be exact, and he is an undercover agent attending school to try to break up a drug ring. He is drawn to Maggie, the smart, pretty yet too skinny girl who spends her lunches in the library. Seth is one of the sweetest guys I have ever encountered and I loved all the incredible things he did for Maggie. She is a mystery that he soon begins to unravel as he tries to break down her walls and show her how love feels.Seth helps Maggie through a lot of hard times in this book and didn't blink an eye while doing it. I melted every time he came up with a way to feed her; Maggie doesn't like handouts and getting her to accept food was not an easy task. He was an incredible guy who also could be extremely sexy when he wanted to!Here are some great quotes/moments thanks to Seth:"Sooner or later, Maggie, our lips will meet again. Personally, I'm voting for sooner."or"Psst." I ignored him. "Psst," he said again. He motioned for me to lean toward him and I wondered what bit of torture he had in mind for me next. He reached for my face, and with his thumb slowly caressed my bottom lip, stealing my breath away. He popped his thumb into his mouth and licked it, sending the blood coursing through my veins at an inhuman speed. He mouthed the words, "Cream cheese," which, thankfully, helped me to regain my composure. I mouthed back, "Annoying," and turned away.I read a review or two where the reader was turned off by the age difference (Maggie is a couple months shy of 18). I did not see an issue with this at all because Seth has only the best intentions when it comes to Maggie and their love story is nothing short of sweet. Maggie needs someone to take care of her for once and Seth is that guy; he loves her to pieces!There are some intense moments in this one as one of the drug dealers becomes obsessed with Maggie and seek revenge on Seth and his friends, Cole and Booker. Between that and some angst causing relationship issues, this book kept me on my toes!Most of this book is from Maggie's POV but there are small portions from Seth's and then a couple from the point of the drug dealers. If I had to change one thing about this book, I would leave out the drug dealer POV. It just pulled me away from parts of the story I was really enjoying!I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys YA Romance with a slice of Action.

This book was great read. Definitely had me hooked from the beginning and I read it in one sitting. I fell in love with Maggie and Seth. They were easy to relate to and just overall really kind people. At some points the writing was a little hard to follow but other than that it was a good book.

This book was amazing! As well as falling in love with all the `good' guys (if you've read any of my other reviews you'll know I have a tendency to do this); I loved the suspense of this book. Yes, I was in tears, but I had so many `Nooooooo!' as well as "I can't go to sleep I have to know what happens next!' moments. I love a book that evokes my emotions and this was definitely one of them.Maggie was one of those girls I would have wanted to be friends with in high school and yes, I so hated (maybe too strong a word) hated Hillary, not to mention the `bad' guys. Being a teacher myself, I cringed when I read about some of the teachers and thought `I like her!' at one of the others. I could even picture them in my mind. Seth had me sighing and Booker had me chuckling.So if you like a bit of romance as well as a good deal of suspense with his humour thrown in, you'll love this book just as much as I did. I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars with a few extras thrown in because of the varied elements woven through the story which made it an excellent read. Sherry Gammon's writing style and story will have you captured from page one. The next one is loaded on my Kindle ready to read.Written by ~Karen~ from Confessions of a Bookaholic

This book touches on a very sensitive subject, which is codependency and children of alcoholics, and does it in a very realistic, gruesome way. The protagonist, teenager Maggie lives in a trailer, alone with her super alcoholic mum. She is a model student, hard working and smart and really fits the profile of a codependent girl trying to be perfect but feeling unlovable. Seth, the male protagonist, is a care-taker, police officer from a privileged background, who falls for this skinny, poor girl. I liked the fact that they are all humans (as opposed to paranormal novels i have been reading, with shifters and vampires and fairies)and deal with real life problems. The writing is great, the characterisation is great, but one thing that put me off a bit is some exagerated character traits, like Maggie is so kind and so good that she is almost a saint, she would rather starve and share her food etc. And then from uber-strong and resilient, she turns into a fragile moaning clutching girl once she knows that Seth loves her. I would have liked her strenght to carry over their relationship rather than her character arch developing into a negative than positive. But overall, i liked Unlovable a lot and will read the next in the series, anticipating the love stories of the other characters in the book, like the cocky police friend of Seth's and the shy doctor.

I thought this was a great book. I couldn't put it down. There was just so much going on. A great little romance going on, but that was just part of the story. There was the story of the the drug/murder investigations and the heart wrenching story of Maggie's relationship with her alcoholic mum.Sherry has written some great characters and the story envokes lots of emotions. It is heart breaking reading about Maggie and her mum. Having a relationship with any loved one who is an addict is hard. They are still a person and you still love them even if outsiders can't understand why. You then have Maggie dealing with emotional abuse at school.But its not all doom and gloom. You have the love story and the relationships Maggie builds with other characters and to add to that you have the mystery of the Alan/Bill drugs story and is Maggie's mum involved? There were moments that made me want to cry, but moments where I had a smile plastered on my face and moments where I chuckled.

It was fairly tedious in most places and totally unrealistic.I rolled my eyes so often in this book that I had a dead ache half way through.The heroine is inconsistent and whiny. Sorry just disliked it so much that ended up skim reading after 50% and by 60% couldn't bring myself to care.

This tells the story of Maggie who lives a dreadful life with her alcoholic mother in a trailer and Seth an undercover agent looking for drug dealers in a school.It's a good story and it keeps your attention, however it hasn't been edited properly so, as it doesn't follow the rule, 'New line New speaker,' it's often hard to tell who's speaking.I've actually just reread it and it kept my attention and the errors aren't overly bad.Suitable for mid teens and above.

This book popped up in my recomendations. It seemed interesting but I wasn't sure - the low price and having read everything on my kindle decided me. However clicking "buy" was one of the best choices I have made in a long time. I finished this book in less than twenty four hours - even though its of reasonable length (some would find this long but I have often chosen books on a basis of a page count of 500+). There are minor issues with presentation/proof reading but one of the best self published I have seen since getting the kindle a few months ago.Don't get me wrong I love my Sci-Fi and Fantasy but it was wonderfully spine tinglingly chilling - as well as exceptionally refreshing to come across 'bad guys' that really could exist and follow you home of an evening just because they are bad; and people who want to do good, not to attone for a supernatural nature but just want to do good because thats what they 'do'. It's also nice to see a guy loving a girl because of who she is and not once again for paranormal reasons.This is very well written and the plot is well thought out and believable (meaning it shouldn't just be dissmissed as YA fiction - it's a lot better written than some of the YA books that have appealed to the adult market on the basis of recent popularity of the sci-fi and fantasy genres). I fell in love with all of the 'good guys' in the book and found the real life issues it dealt with to be of modern day relevance. It's really easy to identify with Maggie and to feel for her; as well as feeling for her mother to the point of tears. My only issue was one person offering something at the end which you would think if they meant what they said and really cared for Maggie and her family they would have helped her a long time ago rather than waiting until she met Seth...I can't wait to hear more about the movie and I am looking forward to the next two books but I hope Maggie and Seth are not just cameo appearances in them and that we get to watch their love progress.