Unteachable by Leah Raeder
This review is from 2014 and is kept here for reference. Titles, prices and availability may have changed.
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Recommendation
Probably the best NA book I’ve ever read, and not your typical young romance. Unteachable is a beautiful story of love and the consequences that come with loving someone you’re not supposed to be with. The old story of forbidden love is done beautifully and you won’t want the story to end! GET THIS BOOK!!!
Okay, let me set the scene a little bit: I’d just finished a book that I was kinda “meep-merp” about. What to read next?
Scrolling through Kindle… scrolling… scrolling… “Unteachable.”
Now this book has been on my Kindle for like… I don’t know, nine months or something. Just, a really unreasonable amount of time. Excuses: New Adult isn’t usually my bag, my TBR is crazy long, new releases pouring in, yadda yadda. It just kept getting bumped down my list of books waiting to be read.
*Anyway*
So then, a trusted friend mentions that this is a favorite of theirs and (after another few weeks pass) I finally decide to crack open Unteachable and give it a whirl.
WHAT. THE FUCK. IS WRONG WITH ME?!
Why did I WAIT?! God, for MONTHS this has been sitting on my Kindle?! This unexploded IED of amazingness just… SITTING THERE?!
I can’t even… I mean… my stupid words are so STUPID attached this incredible book.
This isn’t just some simpleton’s taboo story of a tryst between teacher and student. This isn’t another consume and toss-away story. This was…. Art. Brilliant. Strong. Mature. Surefooted. Brave. Elegant.
Leah Raeder is a word-wizard, and I have a raging brain crush on her now.
I don’t know who Leah is, or where she came from, or what she was doing before penning Unteachable. I don’t know if she was in school, or waiting tables, or sewing garments in a windowless room full of illegal aliens. What I DO know, is that this is her calling.
Leah. Wherever you came from, whatever you were doing, this is your GIFT. I’m sorry I’m a total dick and waited so long to lie down with your story.
Learn from my mistakes, people. Read Unteachable now. [May 2014]
Publisher synopsis
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.
What we didn’t
- I loved this book. Loved. I'm not a writer, but if I were, I'd use Leah Raeder's way with words as a model for how I'd want to be read.
- The story is not a new one: Student and teacher have an affair, all Hell breaks loose. That's the gist, but there's so much more to how she puts it together and makes a beautiful tragedy into an endearing love story.
- I can't recommend Unteachable highly enough. A MUST read!
Review published October 13, 2014