Take Me There by Susane Colasanti

Take Me There

Author: Susane Colasanti

Publisher: Speak Publishers

Pages: 290

Read Time: 4 days

Rating (1-5): 3.5

Tag Words: ABC Challenge (T), 50 States Book Challenge (New York), true love, bad girls, math class, crush on teacher, breaking up, first kisses, karma, political rallies, sexual and physical abuse, secrets, best friends, high school without conduct, Valentine’s Event

My Summary:

Steve broke up with Rhiannon. Rhiannon wants Steve back. Her best friend, Nicole, doesn’t understand why. Nicole just broke up with her boyfriend Danny, she’s not sure why she did that either. James is Rhiannon’s guy friend, nothing more, but he’s not sure that’s who he wants to be anymore. Danny wants Nicole back, he knows that for certain. 

Set in New York City, Take Me There is a roller coaster of if’s, why’s but’s and a heap of karma, for all involved.  

My Review:

This is my second Colasanti, and I liked the plot more than the first book I read of her’s, but I’m still not use to the writing style. If teenagers today really speak like that all of the time, well, God help us! One of my biggest pet-peeves is when authors write dialogue and use terms such as “so he went” or “And she was like” to describe how the character spoke. Drives. Me. Nuts. But I digress.

The characters are good characters, even if they are continuously narrating many of the same events over and over again. I liked that they all had a piece of a personality jig-saw puzzle and you could see why the characters made good soul-mates. That was interesting, usually the characters confess their undying love before the reader can ascertain if the couple works well together. In Take Me There Colasanti shows, rather than blabber-mouths as to why her characters deserve all they get in the end. 

Here are a few things I did feel were off, given that these characters are all supposedly soul mates, which, yes, I agree with. Why would Nicole sleep with Danny before divulging her big secret. Why do girls sleep with guys who they haven’t yet trusted with big issues? Girls, don’t sleep with a guy if you can’t tell him anything! That says you can’t really trust him with your body, okay? However, this being a work of fiction, of course Nicole could, so, hooray. 

Notes on the Names: Rhiannon. I love Rhiannon. Rhiannon Ferrara bugs me to no end. If part of the character’s persona is that her family is big on the Italian she should have an Italian name. However, if Colasanti liked the ‘Fleetwood Mac’ tidbit more she could have chosen a less ethnic last name. I re-dub Rhiannon either Rhiannon Lake or Lucia Ferrara (It’s pronounced Loo-chee-ah). James seems to be a geeky, but handsome male pro-tag favorites around the author watering-hole recently. Can anyone tell me what’s up?

Thoughts on the Cover: I don’t like the cover on the principle that the models are wrong for any of the characters. If the guy is Danny where is his edgy clothing? If he’s James, where is the geeky? If the girl is Nicole, see Danny. If the girl is Rhiannon where is the “big Italian hair?” 

Parental Book Review *spoilers*

Sexual Content: 

Moderate

We learn that Nicole and Danny slept together once and then Nicole dumped him. 

Nicole has a crush on the teacher, who isn’t doing much to discourage her affection.

It is later revealed in small flashbacks that Nicole was physically abused by her father. 

Language: 

Moderate.

Cursing is thrown in from each character here and there.

Violence:

A kid threatens Jackson’s life while at school because Jackson wouldn’t allow him to cheat off his paper. Jackson later takes the issue to the faculty. 

Sheila is being physically abused by her drug-using boyfriend. Nicole works to get her help. 

Other Notables: 

The school is portrayed as lacking disciplinary conduct and references are made that the faculty doesn’t really care about what goes on, or enforcing the correct rules. 

Danny is all about peaceful-protest and demonstrates this during his speech for Student President.