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Aces Up (Review)

Title: Aces Up

Series: N/A

Author: Lauren Barnholdt

Year: 2010

Rating: ★

Summary: Seventeen-year-old high school senior Shannon Card needs money. And lots of it. She's been admitted to Wellesley, but her dad just lost his job, and somehow she has to come up with a year of tuition herself. But Shannon's dream of making big bucks waitressing at the local casino, the Collosio, disappears faster than a gambler's lucky streak. Her boss is a tyrant, her coworker is nuts, and her chances of balancing a tray full of drinks while wearing high-heeled shoes are slim to none. Worse, time is running out, and Shannon hasn't made even half the money she'd hoped.

When Shannon receives a mysterious invitation to join Aces Up, a secret network of highly talented college poker players, at first she thinks No way. She has enough to worry about: keeping her job, winning the coveted math scholarship at school, and tutoring her secret crush, Max. But when Shannon musters up the nerve to kiss Max and he doesn't react at all, the allure of Aces Up and its sexy eighteen-year-old leader, Cole, is suddenly too powerful to ignore.

Soon Shannon's caught up in a web of lies and deceit that makes worrying about tuition money or a high school crush seem like kid stuff. Still, when the money's this good, is the fear of getting caught reason enough to fold?

Review: Oh boy, where to begin? This was the first book in years that I read with my laptop open beside me so I could record all my thoughts in real-time via Goodreads status updates. I know it’s been a hot minute since it was published, but I am genuinely dumbstruck that there are so many positive reviews. I couldn’t usually make it more than a few pages without outwardly groaning and/or rolling my eyes. Shannon as a main character is supremely obnoxious, childish, and selfish; because the narration is from her point of view, it automatically makes every other character in the novel one-dimensional because Shannon just describes people in whatever way she feels like seeing them that day (such as: Max ignored me? What a jerk! Max bought me coffee? OMG SO HOT. And don’t even get me started on Cole!).

I sincerely struggled getting through this, but it was so laughably terrible that at least I got a few chuckles and my husband got the kick of seeing me worked up in annoyance over the stupid things that were in here. This is not the book to read if you want to see a math genius secretly wipe the floor with people while she plays poker. This is, however, the book to read if you want a seventeen-year-old who sounds like she’s twelve yell at her parents for being laid off and also ignore ten billion red flags from every guy she interacts with.

What I Liked: Spoilers!

Somehow, Mackenzie ended up being my favorite character. She was just your standard “girl power” role best friend, and even though she’s only introduced as Shannon’s new coworker at the Collosio, she was by far the most interesting character. I would much rather read a book about Mackenzie dumping her crappy boyfriend and moving on with Felipe because that at least seemed like a dynamic plot. Shannon’s sister, Robyn, also stood a chance of being a decent character. Unfortunately, both of them were presented through Shannon, though, so we didn’t really get to see much of either of them.

What I Didn’t Like:

Where to begin? Perhaps what annoyed me most was the writing. Shannon is supposed to be seventeen and some kind of “supersmart” math whiz who also plans to major in English and creative writing in college (insert major eyeroll from me – and that’s as someone who majored in English and creative writing). Instead, she comes across like a preteen child. The narration is written in a way that is obviously trying to be “stream-of-consciousness” funny, but instead it comes across as sloppy, repetitive, and childish. There were about a dozen instances of Shannon thinking something and then immediately saying the exact same thing out loud, such as the thought narration, “It isn’t?” followed by immediately by Shannon verbally saying, “It isn’t?” The most egregious version of this was the two-for-one of Shannon thinking, “Wow. He’s really angry. I’ve never seen him this angry,” followed immediately by Shannon saying, “Wow. I’ve never seen you this angry.” It’s just lazy writing. No editor should have let that slide even once, let alone the dozen or so instances this happened throughout the book. I absolutely can’t enjoy a book that I feel is poorly written, and this was a classic example of how poor writing can just ruin a book.

More than the writing itself, the characters themselves were flat and boring. Shannon has her childish reactions to everything (including actually shouting at her parents that she wouldn’t “have” to sneak around playing poker illegally and *gasp* getting a job if her dad hadn’t gone and lost his job in the first place, thus taking away her financial ride to college), and everyone else is filtered through that lens. As a result, people like Max, the ex-best-friend-slash-crush, are either “total jerks” or “totally hot” based on how Shannon feels. Parvati, her math rival, is “crazy” and classic Mean Girl. Michelle, who appears to be the only other female member of Aces Up, is just a jealous psycho “I hate you because Cole likes you and I like Cole” girl who has no purpose but to “stare daggers” to Shannon every time they’re near each other. Robyn’s boyfriend, Leonardo, is apparently some sort of douchebag and the whole family wants Robyn to break up with him, but literally every time he’s around, he only says nice things and treats people well? But apparently he’s a douchebag? And don’t get me started on Cole. Cole goes from being “super shady” because Shannon doesn’t know him, to “super sexy” because he’s mysterious and hot and plays poker, back to being shady and “a total jerk” because Shannon doesn’t want to do the poker thing anymore. Absolutely nobody had any depth to them. What’s going on with Cole’s home or school life that drove him to the world of underage poker? Is Parvati actually this clueless about how to interact with other people or does she just seem that way because Shannon doesn’t like her? Does anyone have anything interesting about them at all? The answer is a resounding “no.”

Lastly, the relationships in this book are absolute trash. We’re supposed to come to the realization that Cole is a garbage boyfriend, but honestly, Max is, too. Cole gives off a million red flags right from the beginning, but in true YA fashion, they’re all spun to be sexy rather than signs of someone who probably dabbles in domestic abuse—like shoving Shannon out of the elevator into his hotel room, being a chain smoker (but don’t worry, Cole’s teeth aren’t yellow, they’re white, but not TOO white because that would be bad, and also the smoke doesn’t even smell bad, in fact it smells mysterious and like danger), never asking Shannon about her family or friends and never wanting to take her out anywhere other than the poker tables, only wanting to make out with her in the dead of night, and my personal favorite, Shannon’s explanation that she used to “bug” him about stuff (like… who the balls are the other members of the supposed Aces Up club) but she learns not to bug him anymore because he’ll just ignore her… What a winner. Of course, though, once Shannon decides that she is isn’t interested in cheating during the poker tournament, everything Cole does and has ever done is immediately gross and shady. Max practically deserves his own paragraph. Max is held up like this epitome of the perfect match for Shannon, but it’s all based on insanely stupid things, like “He didn’t order food without me!” or “He brought me coffee!” That’s a seriously low bar. At one point, Max compliments Shannon on being a “great orderer” at a restaurant because “most girls don’t know how to order.” What the actual F does that mean?? Nobody ever talks about the real reasons why Max started ignoring Shannon after he almost kissed her and then started dating another girl two weeks later; it doesn’t matter to Shannon apparently because he wants to make out with her now. In fact, the only male characters that were remotely interesting were other people’s boyfriends—Robyn’s boyfriend, Leonardo, and Mackenzie’s new boyfriend, Felipe. Honestly, I wanted to know more about them. But alas.

Overall: My one-star reviews are reserved for those books that just drove me crazy. Aces Up was a classic example. I know I’m about ten years too late, but seriously, don’t read this. It’s not worth your time. It was awful on so many levels, too many to discuss at length here. At the same time, I almost wish I’d read this in like a book club or something so I’d have other people to complain about it with.

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