My order of preference of Sarah Ockler books seems to be: Twenty Boy Summer, then Fixing Delilah, then Bittersweet. *sigh* What is wrong with me??? BITTERSWEET had a great premise, a unique setting, and even athletes (skating). And yet I wasn't completely charmed in the way that I have to be with books. I liked that BITTERSWEET is about ice skaters and hockey players, but I couldn't get behind the characters. I can understand why Hudson needed to escape her old life after her parents' divorce, but I wasn't a fan of the person she became--or perhaps she was always this way? Hudson often goes into these stream-of-consciousness-like monologues, which, for me, added nothing to the story, and only encouraged me to skim. And once I started skimming, it seemed like I couldn't stop skimming... until I stopped reading altogether.

I usually enjoy the romances that Sarah Ockler writes, but again, I couldn't get behind the one(s?) in BITTERSWEET. Was there supposed to be a love triangle? So why was I so utterly lukewarm on both potential guys, and in fact got a creepster vibe from at least one of them? There's no more "insta-love" than sometimes happens in high school when two people exchange glances or collide into one another, but Hudson's meandering monologues left me entirely disconnected from her character development, to the point where I couldn't care less if any guys liked her or not.

In short: I really enjoyed BITTERSWEET's setting in a small town on Lake Erie, and I enjoyed the athletic aspect of it, but was never invested enough in the characters and their relationships to be inspired to finish reading.