Blog Tour & Review: Busted - Gina Ciocca

Busted
Author: Gina Ciocca
Pub Date: January 2, 2017
ISBN: 9781492654292
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Catching cheaters and liars is a lucrative hobby—until you fall for one of the suspects.
Perfect for fans of Veronica Mars, this new novel from the author of Last Year’s Mistake will steal your heart!

Marisa never planned to be a snoop for hire. It wasn’t like she wanted to catch her best friend’s boyfriend making out with another girl. But as her reputation for sniffing out cheaters spreads all over school, Marisa finds herself the reluctant queen of busting two-timing boys.

And her next case? It’s for ex-frenemy Kendall. She’s convinced her boyfriend, TJ, has feelings for someone else and persuades Marissa to start spying on him. But the more Marisa gets to know sincere and artistic TJ, the more she starts to fall for him. Worse yet, the feelings seem to be mutual. Marisa knows she needs to give up her investigation—and the spoken-for guy who may just be the love of her life. Then she uncovers new secrets about Kendall and TJ, secrets that take ͞cheater͟ to a whole new level...

Buy Links:

Amazon | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Chapters | iBooks | Indiebound | Goodreads

Marisa’s Top 5 Tips For Sleuthing:
Hey there. Marisa Palmera, Private Eye here. Okay, so I don’t actually call myself that, and neither does anyone else. In fact, I never meant to become a sleuth-for-hire. But spend one night scaling your best-friend’s boyfriend’s house to take incriminating pictures, and suddenly everyone wants you to be something you’re not...and when they’re willing to line your sadly lacking pockets for it, it doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. So, should you find yourself an unwitting Girl Friday (or even a witting one... Is ͞witting͟a thing?) like I did, here are some tips that just may save your butt:
1.Always have a camera handy. Whether it’s your cell phone, or the fancy camera you borrowed from your school’s yearbook club, you never know when you’ll need to snap an evidence shot. Just, um, make sure you turn off the flash if said camera is aimed through a window into a dark living room. I may have learned this the hard way.
2.Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Sounds ominous and dramatic, I know. But if someone gives you the vibe that they shouldn’t be let out of your sight? GO WITH IT.
3.Think fast. Suckat lying? Me too. Get over it, because you’ll be fudging the truth a lot.
4.But know when to say no. Weave enough white lies, and suddenly they’re a sticky, tangled web with you trapped inside. Know when it’s time to run, and do it like the flames of hell are licking your feet.
5.Don’t fall for the person you’re investigating. Yeah. You’re just gonna have to do as I say and not as I do on this one. Oops.

Review

4 Stars

Busted has everything you want from a young adult book; plenty of drama, a bit of swoon-worthy romance, a heaping pile of cuteness and friendship. Gina Ciocca has given readers a unique storyline with Busted, perfectly combining teens over-use of internet and social media with all the angst that comes from dating in high school. Main character and narrator, Marisa, is your quintessential high school student. She's trying to fit in, make good grades, participate in extra activities that will look good on her transcripts, spend time with friends, and, of course, navigate the tough world of dating. She's sweet, a bit naive, occasionally petty, and an overachiever at everything. Helping protect one friend from relationship disaster has turned into helping every girl from the same fate, but an old friend seeking to insert herself back into Maria's life may be using her for more than she realizes. She didn't plan on becoming her town's very own PI, but she embraces the role and finds herself becoming the center of her very own investigation.

"I heard you caught her boyfriend cheating."

Busted felt so much like my high school experience. At times, Marisa seemed to lack direction and focus, something that could have taken away from the book, but really felt accurate to how teenagers truly are. She placed a very high value on what others think of her, something that leads to her downfall later on and becomes a huge lesson for her. I really enjoyed the sneaking around and loved how much weight relationships had on the characters. We saw old friendships, best-friendships, the wrong kind of friendships, friends becoming something more, exes, boyfriends, siblings, parents, and everything in between. It is obvious Gina Ciocca went to great lengths to give readers a complex, character-driven novel, something I find a lot of YA novels lack.

"I only knew that it felt more like a promise than a parting of ways."

Busted might require you to write a map to get through it, but otherwise it was one of the best YA novels I have read in a while. It had just the right amount of drama, it didn't blur the lines between YA and NA, and it delivered a couple positive messages that I think youths should hear and we all can appreciate. If you're a fan of fast-paced, contemporary young adult, Busted needs to be on your TBR list.

About the Author

Gina Ciocca graduated from the University of Connecticut with a degree in English, but in her mind, she never left high school. She relocated from Connecticut to Georgia, where she lives with her husband and son. When she's not reading or writing, you can find her taking long walks around the lake in her neighborhood. Gina can also be found online at writersblog-gina.blogspot.com, on Instagram as gmciocca, and Twitter as gmc511.

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