Blog Tour: Fall For You

Fall For You (The Jane Austen Academy #1) by Cecilia Gray
Release Date ~ February 10, 2012
Self-published
ISBN13: 9781938268007
E-book received from author for review
Goodreads Synopsis:
The last thing that the girls at the elite Jane Austen Academy need is hot guys to flirt with. Please. They need to stay focused on something that lasts much longer: an acceptance letter from an Ivy.

But over the summer the school has been sold, and like it or not, the guys are coming. And it's about to turn the Academy--and the lives of its students--totally upside down...

To say Lizzie and Dante are polar opposites is the understatement of the century. He's a snooty Exeter transfer with more money than Google. She's a driven study-a-holic barely keeping up with tuition. It's obvious that Dante thinks he's way too good for Lizzie. And Lizzie knows Dante is a snob with a gift for pushing her buttons.

But things are changing fast this year at the Academy. And when Lizzie's quest to stop those changes blows up in her face, taking her oldest friendship with it, she has nowhere else to turn but to Dante, with his killer blue eyes, his crazy-sexy smile, and his secrets... Secrets Lizzie can't seem to leave alone, no matter how hard she tries...
Today's the first day of the Fall For You blog tour! Enjoy this review, and I hope you stop by the other tour stops to see what other things you can learn about this new series from Cecilia Gray! And enter to win one of 10 e-books of Fall For You at the end of this review!

View the full tour schedule here.

Books like the Fall For You from the Jane Austen Academy series are one of my guilty pleasures in reading - I LOVE fun, light, fluffy books (I think of them as marshmallow reads) that are quick and easy reads but just so enjoyable.
A lighthearted read inspired by Pride and Prejudice, there are a number of other characters alluding to other famous works by Jane Austen, including Sense & Sensibility, Emma, and Persuasion. But what impressed me the most is how well Fall For You is able to give its readers a general feel of Pride and Prejudice in such a short story! Very much like a young Jane Austen-inspired books in contemporary settings for young readers.

1. A good sense of many of Pride & Prejudice ideas:
   I really loved that Fall For You kept many of the same character qualities and attributes of Elizabeth & Mr. Darcy (Lizzie & Dante, respectively), and used this inspiration to create a whole new world and story- one that is particularly applicable to teenagers, and I found it to be overall a rather fair modernization of an old classic.
2. A storyline easily applicable to highschool & teens:
   
   Lizzie faces some real dilemmas, ones that are particularly applicable to high school scenarios. I'm such a sucker for those boarding school plots, and Fall For You was no exception. The pressures of college applications, changing friendships, and finally learning to take a stand for what you believe in are all central to the story, ones that nearly everyone will be able to relate to.
3. A touching plot, rather than silly:
   
   I was slightly wary at first, thinking that a book taking place in a boarding school literally called "The Jane Austen Academy" would end up being cheesy more than anything; but I appreicated that there was a reason behind this, and a real story to it rather than just a literal idea of inspiration and it wasn't nearly as silly as I had anticipated it would be at first.

Fall For You is clearly a setup for the next book, and it's obvious after reading it that each book in the series is a part of a series rather than working well as a standalone. They HAVE to tie in together, in order to piece together the whole story. I was a little disappointed with how many threads were left hanging, but I could see why as they mostly revolved around other secondary characters who will presumably take on a greater role in the next books.

I also found it to be a tad too fast-paced and short; it was remarkable how it didn't feel rushed in so few pages for a romance to develop, and for some problems to be introduced and then tied up, but I still felt like some of the relationships could have been fleshed out a bit more, particularly in regards to Dante and Lizzie. I think the next books in the series will benefit greatly from the advantage of having more history and time behind them to support the backgrounds to the relationships.

But Fall For You was such a light and enjoyable read; one that I could see many fans of contemporary YA books would enjoy, and this could be a great tool to introduce hesitant readres of the classics to some of Jane Austen's very basic storylines and characters because of how well it captures the feel of those characters and ideas.

The trailer for the whole series is available now too:



Purchase Links

United States	Canada	International
Amazon (Kindle)		Smashwords
Barnes & Noble	Kobo

As part of this blog tour, there are TEN e-book copies of Fall For You up for grabs! All you need to do is fill out the Rafflecopter form to enter :) Good luck!

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