Howdy YAL!

To see full review click here.I'm sort of alien junkie.And I don't know why because E.T. is hardly sexy. And after watching all those episodes of Ancient Aliens, I sometimes find myself not sleeping thinking some grey is going to pull a Barney and Betty Hill on me but whatever.How to Date an Alien was free on Amazon which was probably the number one factor in why I decided to read it that and it involved aliens. It's probably one of the better free books from Amazon I read, that's not saying much.To be fair, I thought there were parts of the book that were really cute. I liked the main character, Alex. She wasn't awful as a lot of these YA characters are. Though she did seem a bit immature at times. Okay, a lot of the time.And she did slut slam a bit too.Okay, so I did get annoyed with her. But for the most part we were okay. I didn't like the boy toy though, Ace. Yes, he was an alien. But alien really was a replacement for vampire. To say this guy is an Edward wannabe is an understatement. A bland Edward wannabe.One of my biggest complaints about YA today is that a lot of characters are just bland archetype characters. Typically people try to rip off Bella and Edward. Sometimes they might attempt at copying Harry Potter or Katniss Everdeen. But for the most part, people tend to stick to the good old Bella and Edward ripoffs in YA.Here is no exception except the Bella character is a little smarter and more interesting and the Edward character is even more boring than Edward. And that's saying something since Edward Cullen is just about the most boring character known to humankind-with the exception of the Pillsbury Dough Boy.And now apparently Ace. I didn't even really hate Ace. I found him weird as hell and annoying. But hate him, not so much. Because he was too boring and weird ass to hate.I honestly would've kept reading this one, don't ask me why sometimes I'm a sucker for cute fluffy books especially if they involve aliens, if there was a semblance to a plot here other than the lame ass Rome and Juliet retelling I think it was trying to do.I freaking hate that play.Not the actual play because there are relevant cultural elements and some great lines in it. But I hate the way the YA world views that play. It's not a romance. It's about two idiots that fall in instant lust and get killed for their stupidity. YA tries to make you think otherwise.Whatever though. But Romeo and Juliet plots usually insta ignore from me. Unless of course there's something else to the plot which there wasn't here.You have aliens, freaking aliens. And there's nothing else to the plot. Nothing. Just nothing.I mean, aliens. You can do whatever the hell you want with aliens. But this book, we never do any sort of world building at all. Okay, so the planets in the Solar system like Neptune have aliens. But Vernon never goes into any detail how life is supported in a non-goldilocks zone planet. And the quasi Area 51 area, Circe, its purpose is really never fully explained. How did all these other interns know that there were aliens there?Yeah, sort of a hot mess. And there's no excuse for this hot mess because just watch a couple of episodes of Ancient Aliens and hello inspiration.But I really wanted to give this one a try for the longest time because I liked the voice of the novel. But voice will only get you so far and eventually....well, you just have to let go. Because potential will only get you so far in a book.