Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Slingshot by Mercedes Helnwein.

Grace is a fifteen year old girl who attends a boarding school and has a huge chip on her shoulder, mostly due to her loneliness and frustration. She's in love with one of her teachers, and everyone else around her is an idiot. But then she "rescues" the new kid Wade by hitting his bully with her slingshot, and everything changes. Maybe life isn't so terrible when you have a person.

This is one of those YA books, that had I been seventeen, I would have stayed up all night reading, with a thumping heart, experiencing all the feels. As a grumpy grownup, I felt like I spent way too much time reading a teen saga that kind of went nowhere? Except that it did if you're young. Because romances that go nowhere are par the course for young people. They're figuring things out, falling in and out of love, having ridiculous fights, and acting way too dramatic. I fully embrace that, but now that I'm way past it, I just don't need to read so much about it, and this was a pretty long novel.

It did address some serious issues, including child abuse, so fair warning. But I felt like the author handled it well.

Slingshot is the story of Gracie and Wade, and how they navigate their relationship during their sophomore year at a private boarding school. It’s really hard to review their story without giving a way any spoilers, so I’ll try not too, but man this story reeled me in at the beginning. I love, love Gracie even though she has issues. She reminds me of someone very dear to me, whose on the spectrum and everything Gracie did I could totally relate because that’s exactly how my friend is. To me the story played out like a 80’s teenage rom com, except the girl fell for the best friend instead of the hunky quarterback and ugh Wade, I wanted to wrap him up in the biggest hug ever. I loved everything about this story but the end, don’t get me wrong it was a good ending so I don’t fault the author but the ending that I had in my head was totally better for me. LOL I would recommend this story to anyone.

Why do authors like to portray high school either much older than they are meant to be or much younger?

The main character is 15, she has a crush on her older teacher which is not uncommon but it comes off as a little creepy especially after reading what her reaction was when she found out that he had a fiancee. Sex is a massive theme in this one, I know 15 year old kids are having sex, I am not naive but really? Do we need to put this in their reading material?

I am sorry but this is not a book that I can put on the shelves of my store. There would be a lot of parents who would complain.

This was the epitome of adorable. I wish I had been able to get my hands on this exact book at 15. It’s one of those books I appreciate for the nostalgia of making the younger me inside thrum happily. And that’s a brilliant feeling. I’m so glad I got to get my hands on this!

I really liked the cover and summary. I was struggling in the beginning and tryed to connect with the characters. I was bored and didn't like the dialogue.

I enjoyed how this story started, but the high-school melodrama was too much for my tastes, and I couldn’t bring myself to finish reading. However, for those who enjoy reading about teenagers sorting through the consequences of their actions at a time of life when everything feels like the biggest deal, you’ll like this.

Such a sweet, lovely absorbing teen story.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

I have never read a book quite like The Slingshot in all of my years of reading YA coming-of-age stories. This emotional-rollercoaster of a novel follows Gracie, a high school student at a Florida boarding school, who strives to have no friends until she accidentally joins forces with new-kid Wade by defending him from bullies with a slingshot. The story that follows is messy, heart-wrenching, and every bit as melodramatic and embarrassing as real-life teen experiences. Fans of John Green, Rainbow Rowell, and unreliable narrators will find this book impossible to put down. Gracie is a fascinating narrator with an active inner life and a truly impressive character arc despite her outward hostility toward most of the other characters. Wade, her best-friend/love-interest/savior-of-her-life is wonderfully compelling and sympathetic; his charm, openness, and tragic home life all make the reader fall in love with him right alongside Gracie. The interesting thing about this novel, though, is how a stereotypically "unlikable" character like Gracie, who makes wrong decisions at every turn and is actively rude to everyone around her, can make the reader root for her so hard. I think Gracie has something every person has in high school--a big, messy, uncontained heart under a heavy layer of sarcasm-as-defense. My only critique of this book is its ending, which too closely mimics that of Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park--down to minute plot details. That, and it was difficult to read for someone who was also an emotionally-volatile, unhappy teenager. Still, the way Slingshot deals with loneliness, sex, "fitting in," and bigger questions about family and love is truly mind-boggling. I will be thinking about this book for a long time, and I don't think any reader will be able to forget it.

For being a debut for this author, it’s rally great. I didn’t want to stop reading it. Definitely buying a copy. I loved getting to know Gracie and who she is and how she evolved through the book. I like that we automatically knew Gracie was easily infatuated with men because of her hot teacher. But Wade is such a great compassionate person, I love how comfortable they are with each other almost immediately! Both were so real with each other and I appreciated that. Reason why I didn’t give it a 5 stars is, I don’t understand why Derek had to get intimately involved with Gracie. Why couldn’t they stay just be friends or the “enemies” they once were.

I really disliked this book especially the main character. She didn't care about anyone, from the vibe she gave off, yet cared enough about one girl's advice to go ahead and nearly destroy a relationship with a faithful friend. Made no sense and just makes you angry. I realize the main character is a troubled teen who has gone through a lot. But the story was just off and felt much more like a train wreck. I skipped around toward the middle of the book to see how the story turns out. Yet cannot recommend this story at all.

This book surprised me. I was expecting a fluffy contemporary romance, but it was more than that. I get the comparisons to Mary H.K. Choi. The main character, Gracie, was kind of mean and definitely complicated. The weakest parts of the book were the beginning and the ending. At the very start of the book, Gracie is in love with her teacher, and gets unacceptably angry when he doesn’t return her crush. It’s a weakness in character development that Gracie expects that he will - there is NO way he would, unless he was morally corrupt, which he wasn’t. The ending is also a bit unsatisfying, in how the author wraps up the love story of Gracie and Wade.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I...should not have requested this. Looking back I wonder why I did.

I’m not comfortable with large age gaps—especially when one starts as a teen.

I couldn’t like this, though I know tons of others will.

Thank You Publisher for Sending me and ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this book, but just couldn't get into it. I think it could have been really fun but I just couldn't get into the writing style. I liked the way the book started off, but as I read on I felt like it was predictable. I wish it had a little more WOW factor to it.

I want to thank Mercedes Helnwin, St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an advanced readers' copy of Slingshot in exchange for an honest review. When I first picked up this book, I was really enjoying the writing style. I thought that it flowed really well and felt natural when presenting dialogue.

One thing that I also really enjoyed was the conversation surrounding the crush that Grace, the main character, has on her teacher. I know that this is a natural feeling for many teenagers as they're learning to understand certain changes in their minds and bodies. While conversations like these can be quite tricky, I think that Helnwin controls it well and it able to show that it is very clearly one sided.

With that being said, the one thing that I cannot look past is the over-sexualization. Grace is 15 years old, but often times acts like she is 18 or even older. I truly think this would have been smarter to change her age to 18. There is a moment where Grace is told to open her legs in a skirt in front of her teacher so that he can see her underwear, or not wear underwear at all. This, unfortunately, is not something that I can look behind as she is only 15. Again, I think changing the age or completely avoiding this kind of discussion would have been more appropriate. While I completely understand that sex is a normal thing to explore at the age of 15, I think the way that it was discussed will give individual's the wrong impression.

While I did not enjoy the plot or content in this specific novel, I will try more by Mercedes Helnwein in the future, as I did thoroughly enjoy her writing style.

I in turns hated and loved this book. I really did not like the main character. She was so mean and selfish, but she also felt really real? Maybe too real. I kept reading because I was fascinated by her, and her audacity. What was she going to say next? The love story here isn't easy either. Wade is sweet but also troubling. All the characters are flawed, and I don't have a problem with that, but I needed this book to ease up a little bit. I needed characters to be just a little more humane every once in a while.

A coming of age tale. As the illegitimate daughter of a married Hollywood lawyer, Grace struggles to find her place in the world while she attends a mediocre boarding school amid the wealthy and privileged. It’s not until she meets the new arrival, the troubled Wade that things begin to change and her impulsive ways begin to have direction. Their relationship changes and she sees that her understanding of love and people’s actions might have a completely different meaning and feel than she originally thought.

The story is a little rough and slow in the beginning, but then it settles down and becomes an engrossing story with some really raw and well-crafted moments that capture the feel of teen emotions. With the open ending it has a ring of a John Green or Rainbow Rowell, but its general tone and voice, especially in the beginning are more in the realms of Sarah Dessen with a hint of Jennifer Niven.

Unfortunately this wasn’t for me DNF, the characters just weren’t all that great, and the story just wasn’t there.

If a slingshot is a symbol of childhood playthings and amusements, this story works as a coming of age tale for the socially awkward. With perplexing family dynamics, shared over boarding school downtime, there's a lot of life lessons for Gracie, especially after Wade becomes part of her life. Do they save each other? Maybe. But the subheading of "true love has the worst aim" is misleading because this is clearly infatuation of two souls who have their moment in time. True love perseveres (yes, I've been to a lot of weddings) and this relationship is just a starting point. If the story is about abuse and its impact, then we need more of that. If this story is about figuring yourself out against the backdrop of your unique family life, then go with that. There are moments of absolute brilliance served alongside a buffet of YA tropes that have been left out to entice. Go ahead, heap them onto your plate, but when the flavors merge, you can't quite put a name on the muddled flavor profile.

This book was not for me. The writing and the characters did not appeal to me as a reader in any way. Had to stop reading after a few chapters. DNF

I hated this book. The main character was extremely unlikeable. I only got halfway through because after she slept with the asshole classmate just to get losing her virginity over with I was out.