Snowed In by Rachel Hawthorne

Synopsis (via Goodreads): Well, apparently I live here now—my mom just bought the place. And named it after me, Ashleigh, which was nice. But did she know how cold it is here??

Um, it's a tiny island with not much to do, unless you really like sleigh rides. But I gotta say there are quite a few hot guys on this cold island . . . 

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I was really looking forward to reading this one, but it wasn't a good fit. If the book hadn't been so short, I would have DNFd it about halfway through. 

Snowed In has an adorable cover with an interesting premise, but the characters were hard to like. Ashleigh was shallow and vapid, and Josh was willing to stay with the same person for five years because he didn't know what else to do. He checked a box when he was twelve and just went with it. Nathalie never referred to her boyfriend by name. He was always "my boyfriend," which was incredibly annoying. The issue was addressed later on, but only briefly and with no resolution.

"As a rule, guys didn't distract me. They interested me... if I wanted to be interested."

Nathalie's friends were present but not part of the story, and none of the secondary characters were fleshed out. The conversations were awkward and unrealistic, and the story was choppy and uncoordinated. I wish everything had flowed together and read more like a YA book, but both the language and the story were very simple.

"Someone hotter than Chase and Josh? I couldn't wait to see this guy. I wondered if some sort of mutant gene had developed on the island that made all the guys good-looking. I mean, really, what were the odds that there wouldn't be any dorks around here? Let's hear it for gene mutation."

I really liked the idea of Ashleigh and her mom buying a bed and breakfast in a small town on an isolated island, and the wintery setting was beautiful, but those were probably the only two positives for me. I love the idea of an old attic bedroom, turrets, and fireplaces. 

"Because my first girlfriend was a girly-girl when we watched horror. I don't want my next girlfriend to be."

The word boyfriend was used so often, I started to roll my eyes whenever it appeared on the page. All of the girls were obsessed with having a boyfriend just so they wouldn't be alone. It didn't matter if the two people actually liked one another. The one girl not obsessed with having a boyfriend (Ashleigh) was determined to never have one. Although, her reasons for that were vague.

"I was afraid if [he] wasn't my boyfriend that I wouldn't have one, and I really wanted to have a boyfriend."

Nathalie was rude and condescending from the start. She disregarded Ashleigh's feelings and the concerns she had. It was all about Nathalie and her boyfriend -- ugh. Surprisingly, they were best friends after their initial meeting, and I had no idea why. There was nothing there to indicate friendship or that the two of them even liked each other. 

In the end, these were just a few of the reasons Snowed In didn't work for me. My initial excitement for this book fizzled after a few pages, and was completely flat by the end.