Blocked – Jennifer Lane

Title: Blocked by Jennifer Lane

Genre: New Adult Romance

Pages: 300 (ebook)

Rating: 4/4.5 Stars

**ARC received in exchange for an honest review**

Summary: College freshman Lucia Ramirez has a secret crush on Dane Monroe. He’s a tall drink of water — blond, brash, and one hell of a volleyball player. ¡Híjole! Lucia hopes her volleyball scholarship to his school will make him notice her.

Too bad what’s noticeable is Dane’s obvious hatred for Lucia. Her family’s politics contradict everything he stands for. And politics are front and center in both their families. Dane’s mother is about to face Lucia’s father in the race for US President.

When Secret Service throws them together, Dane can’t deny his frustrating attraction to Lucia’s athletic curves and sweet faith in the world. Amid the intense pressure of college athletics and presidential politics, can opposites not just attract, but overcome overwhelming odds to be together? Or do their differences block their match from the start?

Review: 

Blocked by Jennifer Lane is my first experience with Jennifer Lane as an author and what drew me into trying out Blocked was the synopsis of the novel; I haven’t read a novel which features political issues before especially a new adult romance therefore this was going to be a new experience for me.

I thoroughly enjoyed Blocked, so much so I give it 4 stars out of 5. I couldn’t bring myself to give it a full 5 star rating because I did find myself somewhat confused by all the politics and the constant mentioning of whose liberal and whose Republican and what each of them stand for. Being from the UK I don’t have any comparison points on whether the political campaign content of the novel is very similar and realistic to real life because I haven’t experienced a presidency election before however it sounds pretty similar to the government party campaigns. Despite finding myself lost once or twice I did also find this aspect rather enjoyable also as it gave us as a reader an opportunity to see two opposing views and how the children of the candidates are dealing with the pressure.

Blocked is ultimately about college life mixed with politics and sport; volleyball. The sport aspect shows another element of competition for each of the protagonists, their is the dominant presidency election between their parents and their children fight alongside them for what they believe in. But Volleyball is their own personal true competition, they each show drive and love for the sport even when at times its the reason for why they are down or developing issues. As well as this Jennifer Lane also throws in some serious content linked to our two main protagonists, Lucia develops an eating disorder, Dane suffers with his anger and alcoholism therefore this shows that our main protagonists are flawed. They aren’t perfect making them easy to identify with.

Furthermore Jennifer Lane also slightly touches upon Gay rights and lesbianism as well as abortion, there is a-lot of content packed into these 300 pages. However it isn’t hard to get into and the writing style is similar to that of other new adult novels I have read such as Abbi Glines, whose writing is just descriptive enough to set the scene but not too much to bore the reader. Similarly to other New Adult Novels, Blocked alternates between Point of View of Dean and Lizza, allowing us to see both opposing views, their emotions and personal life whilst also showing their political views and family life which each adds up to creating a fully rounded story. I think Blocked teaches it’s readers a moral of the story that despite having opposing views and think they hate each other both Dean and Lizza actually share numerous similarities and we should never simply just judge a book by its cover or assume what we know about a person.

 

Blocked was a great easy read, I loved how Lizza is from Mexican descent therefore adding another cultural element to the novel mixing American and Mexican cultures which allowed Jennifer Lane to experiment and throw in some Mexican dialogue into the book. The characters truly develop throughout this story and their interactions are heart warming, funny as well as having moments which are sad. Our two main protagonists each go onto a journey to find themselves and each other.

Finally what makes Blocked lean towards a more 4.5 star rating is the fact it ends on a cliffhanger of sorts,  throughout the novel it has been very politically dominant and we have witnessed our two main protagonists battle it out and argue over who would win. Therefore by ending the novel prior to revealing it means that the ending is ambiguous although for a minute or two I was sat feeling angry because I wanted to know who would of won but I soon realized it didn’t matter. The final scene summed up Lizza and Dean’s relationship perfectly.

For more information on Blocked check out it’s Goodreads Page by clicking here.

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Read Blocked for yourself? I would love to hear your thoughts on it. Let me know in the comments!