EyeLeash: A Blog Novel (Book Review), Jess C Scott

EyeLeash: A Blog Novel
Jess C. Scott
Contemporary Romance/ Alternative
[rating: 4/5]
Available in…
• HTML/TXT/RTF
• PDF
• Mobi/Kindle
• ePub/iPad
• LRF
• PDB
… from…
• Smashwords
• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• MobiPocket
Also in paperback

EyeLeash is the private journal of Jade, a 17-almost-18-year-old girl, who recently graduated from an all-girl high school. She wants to lose her virginity with Novan, a boy she knew from earlier in her life, and she struggles with how she should accomplish that.

Jess C. Scott sent me a PDF of EyeLeash, her first indie novel some months ago, in exchange for an electronic copy of one of my books. We also swapped blog interviews.

This novel is written in an alternative format, as a personal online journal, and it’s risqué for a YA novel, because of all the talk about sex. Surprisingly, the format did not distract me, and the story kept my attention. It became clear to me early on that not only did Novan have an emotional attachment to Jade, but Jade also was whipping herself up into an emotional attachment to Novan, even though they both said there was nothing between them. As the story progressed, Jade descended from confused to disturbed to pitiful. I began to feel sorry for Novan, wanting to tell him just to forget about this girl, because she has to get herself together before she could be a viable partner to any man.

Jade spends too much time online, which seems to isolate her from those around her, including her parents, though she clearly doesn’t realize it. This leaves her with some pretty crazy ideas about sex and some pretty dysfunctional obsessions. She dwells on sex with Novan almost exclusively, obsessively, so much that I sensed she was using these thoughts to cover up for something else that was troubling her, like her inability to love. Then when Novan backs off from the friends-with-benefits deal, she automatically assumes there’s something wrong with her, while it was obvious even to me that it had nothing to do with her. (Don’t worry about what people think about you, because if you knew how little time they actually spent thinking about you, then you’d really be worried. People spend more time figuring out what they want for lunch than they do thinking about you.)

Jade clearly has issues, which probably stem from her past, from her relationship with her parents—Where were they, anyhow? Throughout this entire story, they never did anything worthy of being ranted about in her journal?—or her relationships with her peers. While I was happy with how the story turned out—and I’m not giving away the ending—these aspects of Jade’s psyche were never explored, not even in the epilogue, leaving me unsatisfied.

I liked the book a lot, and I hope to read more books like this. I actually deducted ½ star from the full 4 stars, because I wanted to know more about Jess. Even so, this is clearly a decent story, quite readable and worth checking out, especially if you want to read something a little different than the norm.

-TimK