Perfect Chemistry 2

What character do you most dislike?

As much as I have to admit that I liked this book, I will also say that Alex pisses me off the most. I like him so much as a character, but his personality is so upsetting. He is obviously the gang character who has to prove his street cred so he does things that he knows are morally wrong. Alex deep down has a good heart—he is kind and caring, but on the outside he is so afraid to let anyone see that person. What I hated most about him was his interaction with Brit in the beginning of the book. From the initial interaction on the first day of school where he blatantly objectifies her by looking her entire body up and down in front of a group of guys to prove a point—he doesn’t stop at this. When Alex finds Brittany extremely drunk on the beach, he considers having sex with her to win the bet. In the end, he decides not to, since he’s drunk and high and wants to be at his best when he finally hooks up with Brittany. Seriously. Not because it would be wrong to take advantage of a girl, but because he’s drunk. Anyone else would see this comment as a play on his crude character, but again, I believe he is better than that and perhaps he just didn’t want his true morals that he sets for himself to be lost. Brittany is also someone who I had mixed feelings about in the beginning. The one thing that I disliked most about her was the fact that she felt she had to hide her sister who has CP. She admitted that only her best friend had ever seen her sister Shelley, and I hated that. I initially thought that she was embarrassed of Shelley and didn’t want people on the outside to see what their family is like, but later we realize that she does it somewhat intentionally. Brit does it to protect Shelley—she fears that Shelley will be teased if people know about her, and for that I can understand her reasoning for wanting people not to know about her. Even though these two characters have their fatal flaws, I feel they can be justified because there is usually an underlying reasoning on why they act the way they do.