Unteachable by Leah Raeder

Unteachable - Leah Raeder
Publisher : Atria
Release Date : October 14th 2014 (First published in July 27th 2013)
Genres : New Adult, Contemporary
Pages : 305
Rating : ★★½☆☆

Maise O’Malley just turned eighteen, but she’s felt like a grown-up her entire life. The summer before senior year, she has plans: get into a great film school, convince her mom to go into rehab, and absolutely do not, under any circumstances, screw up her own future.

But life has a way of throwing her plans into free-fall.

When Maise meets Evan at a carnival one night, their chemistry is immediate, intense, and short-lived. Which is exactly how she likes it: no strings. But afterward, she can’t get Evan out of her head. He’s taught her that a hookup can be something more. It can be an unexpected connection with someone who truly understands her. Someone who sees beyond her bravado to the scared but strong girl inside.

That someone turns out to be her new film class teacher, Mr. Evan Wilke.

Maise and Evan resolve to keep their hands off each other, but the attraction is too much to bear. Together, they’re real and genuine; apart, they’re just actors playing their parts for everyone else. And their masks are slipping. People start to notice. Rumors fly. When the truth comes to light in a shocking way, they may learn they were just playing parts for each other, too.

Smart, sexy, and provocative, Unteachable is about what happens when a love story goes off-script. 

This book is composed of :

- 45% of sex

This is the story of the relationship between a teacher and his student so obviously they weren't going to look at each other in the eye, duh. Maise is a teenager used to sleep with older men, that's fine by me but what I didn't like was the fact that she constantly justifies her behaviour because of her "dad issues".

There are a lot and I mean a lot of sexy passages in this book, if you're not comfortable with that you should pass.

I think there is a sexy scene in almost every chapter (yeah, they're passionate). No, seriously passion is something very important in this book. They're drawn to each other almost against their will. Maybe a little too much, they were so involved with each other that I didn't feel really connected to any of them, it's like when you meet a couple and you're left out. Even though it's told in the first person, the distance remains.

Evan (the teacher) isn't memorable, just another male interest I'm probably going to forget in a month. He has nothing special, actually I found him even dull some times. I wanted more scenes with him as a teacher, I wanted dialogues making me smile and excited but nop, that's not what I got.

- 30% of love

I know what you're going to say : "There is less love than sex ? Really ?" well yes really. Saying I love you is always a big step in american shows/books/movies. It's not such a big deal in France, we just say it without thinking too much about it (at least in my experience) but anyway that's not the point.

What I'm trying to say is the story follows a girl afraid of commitment, wary most of the time because of her past, loving someone puts her out of her comfort zone and it made me curious to see how she was going to handle it. Unfortunately, she isn't as complex as I wanted her to be. I expected a real struggle but this issue got dealt with too easily in my opinion.

- 10% of friendship and family time

Their relationship being the center of the story, this doesn't leave much room to anything else. We can give credit to the author to show how passion consumate them. Nothing else matters.

I loved Weasley (and I think you will too), he's refreshing and he is the complete opposite of the teacher : Young, still innocent and immature but I liked him more than Evan.

- 10% of secrets

I can't say a lot about that. No mystery would've been boring, right ? I wish it was more exploited. A lot of things in this book could've been pushed further but I enjoyed the fact that there weren't too much drama. This book shines with its simplicity, I was engrossed in it, eager to see how this ends.

- 5% of Film Studies

He's a teacher so he's supposed to teach something, right ? A movie can be seen differently by two different person and so are people. I won't say too much about that.

Put together, the story becomes sexy and addictive . I would be lying if I'd say that's the best contemporary I've read. The plot is nothing extraordinary, the characters are okay but it was a quick, fun read, great to kill time.