Punk 57 - Penelope Douglas

Punk 57 - Penelope Douglas

*Sigh* I started writing this review as just another entry in my weekly romance wrap-up but I had more to say about it than I thought so it gets a whole dedicated post.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book and I know a lot of people love this book so here we go.

This book follows pen-pals Misha (guy) and Ryen (girl).  They go to neighboring schools and were assigned as pen-pals in 5th grade. The book takes place during their last 6 months of senior year in high school.  They've been pen-pals since 5th grade even after they were no longer required to write to each other.  They agreed to not meet in person or look each other up on social media but Misha finds out who Ryen is at a party one night but she doesn't know who he is.  Due to certain circumstances, Misha and Ryen end up running into each other a lot and Misha doesn't like who Ryen is out in the real world.  Due to plot reasons, Misha ends up using a fake name when he meets Ryen and since he's a jerk to her right away, Ryen ends up not liking Misha.  Eventually, of course, they form a sort of friendship and the two do have an undeniable chemistry between them.   

I will say off the bat that I really liked the last 60% of the book.  The premise is really interesting and it is a sort of friends to enemies to friends to lovers bully romance.  I think the book has a really great message and the underlying plot with Misha's secrets is really intriguing. The first 40%, however, almost had me put the book down because I just really don't like bully romances. The more I try to read the highly recommended or highly rated bully romances, the more I've just come to realize that this is a trope I just have such a hard time suspending my disbelief with (and I LOVE mafia romances, so that's saying something). And this is nothing against this particular book, in fact, Punk 57 is one of the best written and character-centric books I've read.  I understand that Misha was upset at how Ryen was acting and that she wasn't who he thought she was but he was just as bad (if not worse) to her and then they both end up falling in love with this other person who is super mean to them during their last few weeks of senior year of high school when at least Ryen knew she'd be going off to college in the fall. To their credit, once all the truth comes out, both characters acknowledge how awful they were so they at least have some semblance of self-reflection but the very quick forgiveness didn't match the amount of damage I felt was done by the bullying and lying.  And, obviously, as someone who doesn't really like or understand the bully romance trope, I didn't find the redemption arc of the characters super believable but at least there was one and I could suspend my disbelief just enough to make the ending work.

In her afterword, Douglas mentioned that a lot of times the heroine in a romance is flawed, but at the core is a very good person because they're often an author/reader stand in. However, in this case, Ryen was objectively not a nice person and that is something Douglas set out to write.  I found that a really interesting take on the traditional heroine and I liked that Ryen was so different but believable at the same time.  I think we all have shades of Ryen inside us, especially during those rough high school years.  I liked that the story hinged on the idea of who we are inside vs who we show to the outside world and the different masks that every person wears in different situations.  And from a critical point of view, I could absolutely see myself writing a paper in high school about the themes presented in this book.  I think these themes are really important, especially in a YA/NA romance that younger teens may be reading and see some of their own choices reflected in the characters.  I don't often like to talk about authorial intent because I believe that intent doesn't matter at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is what the reader gets out of the book.  But since Douglas wrote her intent down specifically at the end of the book, I thought it was worth mentioning.

Anyway, back to the romance.  A big point that irked me was the fact that Misha and Ryen were just seniors in high school yet their sex scenes were out of this world hot (Penelope Douglas can write some good boning).  We know a little sexual history of the two characters and nothing would indicate that these two were out every weekend working on their sex skills so the confident and detailed sex scenes came as a bit of a shock.  I know that it is common in romance for the characters to have an amazing connection and every touch is electric but this felt way over the top for the characters in this story.  If these exact same sex scenes were put into a book about people in their early 30s who had more experience, they wouldn't feel out of place at all.  However, I couldn't get over the fact that these were two high schoolers with very limited experience doing the acts described with all the dirty talk that happens during the scenes.   I also just feel a little icky about reading such overt sex scenes from high school aged people in general.  I think sex scenes can work in YA books (because YA aged people do have sex so it should be included in books), but I think most of the time it is toned down a bit and isn't so explicit.  I was more upset by the lack of explanation as to why Misha especially was so good at throwing down the D than I was about the explicitness of it. 

I think the relationships with side characters really elevated this book for me.  I feel a lot of romance books obviously center around the main couple and maybe one or two best friends that show up occasionally.  But in this book, they both have their circle of friends at school, both have families, and there are more side characters that come in, and all these characters are unique and have different connections to the main characters.  These outside relationships really help characterize and flesh out the main characters to get a better sense of who they are.  Misha standing up for a kid being bullied in class, for example, gives the reader an action so when Misha is later talking about what a bully Ryen is, we have proof that Misha isn't just all talk and judgement.  When her friends start being jerks to her and Ryen starts to feel panic of being rejected again, the reader can then connect threads that come up later in the plot and we know Ryen isn't just making excuses for her behavior - she's deeply affected by the actions of her friends.  I would have liked to see more interactions between Misha and his friends.  We get some scenes toward the end of the book with Misha and his cousins and bandmates, but I wanted more earlier in the book.

Overall, once the first 40% of the book was out of the way (which is where the majority of the bullying between Ryan and Misha takes place), I really enjoyed the book.  I thought the characters were dynamic and unique.  I thought the topics of bullying, peer pressure, and pretending were all very well handled without being overly preachy.  I can absolutely see why this is a lot of people's favorite Penelope Douglas book or favorite bully romance entirely and it is certainly the best bully romance I've read thanks mainly to the overall character development.  I would say the characters are redeemed at the end and went on to be better people overall, which I always appreciate with bully romances.

343 pages

Friends to enemies to friends to lovers bully romance.  Great themes, if you like YA/NA bully romances then this would be one to check out for sure if you haven't already.