Killer Cruise Book

Killer Cruise was a book I randomly stumbled upon while trying to fill out my A to Z Challenge (heard that one much lately?). And, similar to my other random choices, I really liked it.

The book is about New York socialite Ashley who goes on a cruise for her 16th birthday. Something comes up at work for her parents, so she goes with her 2 best friends, her boyfriend, her half sister and her boyfriend and her frenemy (which is her mom's best friend's daughter and Ashley's biggest competition).

Within the first day, the drama starts and not until they're back in New York does it start to calm down.

Freak accidents start to happen and it all goes back to Taylor who went missing last year. Is Ashley's new crush, smoothie-maker Logan, behind all of the scandal? Like I'm really going to tell you.

There were some parts of this book I really like. I like that they used real movies, books, shows etc. When you talk about Project Runway, I know what you're talking about. I hate when authors use made up titles. I have no idea what the shows about!

I also thought it was cute that each time the girls went somewhere, we always knew what they were wearing. From head to toe. This made it easy for me to imagine each one, each day.

Now there were some things I didn't like about this book. And it makes me feel old to say this

1. Why is a 15 year old allowed to go on a cruise without any supervision? Yes, her older half sister is on board with her and yes, papa knows the captain, but are they really going to babysit? Doubt it. I don't believe this is reality. I think it shows false hope for kids. And this is a young adult book, so those are the readers it's geared towards.

2. The first day on the ship, the first day Ashley sees Logan, she already tells him she likes him. YIKES! Forward much? I know teens are love crazy, but this made me nervous to have kids.

3. Ashley didn't hang out with her friends very much. There were days where she'd go all day out with a boy and not even see them. I couldn't imagine bringing along my 2 bff's on a cruise and ditching them for almost an entire week. This is another instance I don't think parents would want their kids reading this book. When I was 20 years old and went to Mexico, I wasn't allowed to leave my dads side, or be alone because he was afraid I'd get kidnapped. When you're not in America, you don't know what's going to happen to you. You can't just be running around with a stranger in the Bahamas and not be nervous that you may or may not get snatched.

4. One sentence: 16 year old sleeping in the same bed as a boy!

Ok, now I feel like an old prude after reading this book.

I didn't start thinking about young adult books in this light until recently when my future sister-in-law was telling me one of the things that made her not love Twilight was that Edward stayed in Bella's room. These books are geared towards teens and young adults. That's not something they need to be reading about. I never thought of that, but I agree. My parents would NEVER have let me do that. Yes, Twilight is not real, but if Bella and Edward do it, why can't I?

Although I ranted a lot about this book, I liked it and had to change my mind a few times about who the bad guy was before it finally came out. I give Killer Cruise 3 bookmarks.