Book Review: Complete Nothing

Complete Nothing
By: Kieran Scott
Published By: Simon and Schuster
Publication Date: September 30, 2014
Page Count: 310
Source: ARC Kindly Provided By Publisher
Audience/Genre: YA Romance/Mythology
 Buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Indiebound.

I absolutely adored the first book in the True Love series by Kieran Scott, but I wondered if, after the initial struggles True (aka teenage goddess Eros, sent to Earth by Zeus to match three couples without the use of her powers) had adjusting to life on Earth, the premise would work as well in a second book. I'm happy to say it still works, and I loved this book as much as Only Everything, if not more. True continues to be unintentionally hilarious and intentionally sarcastic, but her moxie is now tempered with restraint and a desire for respect.

Read my review of Book 1: Only Everything.

On one hand, as the cover blurb indicates, if True is not successful in this match (or any of her three matches), her "efforts will amount to a complete nothing," but complete nothing is also what Peter and Claudia are without each other. Peter, in an act of misguided self-protection, breaks up with Claudia at the beginning of their senior year. Not only isn't Peter thrilled about getting out of high school in a few months, but he's downright scared. He has no plan of his own, and he knows there is no way his talented, studious, Princeton-bound girlfriend Claudia will stay with him. Claudia, on the other hand, wants amazing things for Peter and knows he's capable of them...if he would only fill out the applications.

Enter True. True knows these two should be together, and the reader knows it too. The fun in this book is watching True work, as she steps, missteps, and eventually comes into her own and regains her confidence and powers (both Earth-bound and god-like). Kieran Scott continues to write her teenage characters incredibly well. I said it before, and I'll say it again -- I swear she has to have a camera set up outside my classroom to get the attitudes, speech patterns, and behaviors down as well as she does. She manages to write characters that I care about and she gives even the secondary characters depth. 

While Claudia's character is absolutely well-written, I found myself drawn more to Peter's inner monologues. He realizes that, as a high school football star, he is a big fish in a small pond and  once he goes to college he's on his own: "This was my home. Everyone here knew my name...I looked down at the top of the brochure again and my vision blurred. When I got to college -- if I got to college -- I wouldn't be me anymore. I'd be no one. And I'd be completely alone." Both Peter and Claudia's growth, and their relationship, throughout the novel is lovely to watch and you root for them as much as you do True.

Final Word: Loved the book, still love True, and I can't wait for the third installment!

Summary via Goodreads

True’s matchmaking skills are the stuff of legend! The second novel in Kieran Scott’s delightful teen romance series that TeenVogue.com called “the next Twilight.”

True is not exactly loving New Jersey. Banished from Mount Olympus and tasked with helping couples find love without using her powers, the goddess-formerly-known-as-Cupid is having a tough time. Especially now that True’s immortal love, Orion, has also appeared at her New Jersey high school—but with no memory of their relationship.

To distract herself from seeing Orion flirt with another girl, True focuses her efforts on making a match: Peter and Claudia. Peter is the star quarterback and the most popular guy in school. But he’s insecure about his future, so he preemptively dumps Claudia, his girlfriend. (If she won’t want to be with him later, why stay together now?) Claudia doesn’t take the breakup too well, and she’s ready to show the quarterback of their rival school just how ready she is to get over it.

But True sees something in these two seniors. She believes they should be together—but can she help them find their way back to each other (and get herself closer to home)? Or have things already spun too far out of control?