I love that we live in an age when it's possible for authors as young as Senerella to get their books published. I love that we have so many small/indie presses available to get authors' names and works out there. However, in my opinion, "Mine" is a case where those two things didn't make something lovely. Before I continue, there's some things you should know about my reading taste. First, I've never really been into romances and I've never really been into young adult books. A huge exception to both of these is Ellen Schreiber's "Vampire Kisses" series. I was hardcore into those in middle school, maybe high school. Don't hate me for that! I also read a lot of really good YA and romance in creative writing courses written by fellow students at Bloomsburg, so I'm not impossibly disinterested in the genre. I mean, I gave this book a shot, right?

That said, I would not recommend this book to anyone. The author has potential -- really -- but it feels like her genres (concepts of audience) are mixed up. The first half of this book was super page-turning intense. Unfortunately, my heart kept telling me that someone was going to get murdered or turn into something supernatural or reveal that they're really a robot or maybe turn out to be a government agent. The main character actually mentions feeling that way early on in the book. There's some weird stuff going on. The problem is, she just keeps accepting that things are normal enough for her to act like nothing is wrong. I was a teenager just like everyone else, so I understand not wanting to get the cops or any other adults involved... but only to a point. This far surpasses that point. And it's listed as realistic fiction.

There's going to be some spoilers now. Anika, the main character, runs around kissing boys and then feeling sorry about it, repeatedly. These aren't even just boys though -- they're really creepy boys that would have anyone else on high alert and maybe even filing restraining orders. From my secondhand experience with "Twilight" I might compare it to that sort of thing, but minus anything paranormal. She's not under some spell, she's not discovering magic, she's not even learning about herself. In Senerella's author profile on Amazon, she writes, "I could ship characters and then make it happen, just because I wanted to." That's not fair to readers. It's flat and there's no character arch.

Speaking of flat characters, Anika's best friend is a tiny blonde girl who seems to be perpetually happy. That's literally all there is to her character. She pops up, smiles or hugs someone, then vanishes. It seems like her only purpose is to show that Anika does actually speak to females. SUPER SPOILER: Also, she ends up dating the only sane guy that Anika kisses (out of three).

So what's up with all these crazy guys? Well, some strange new guy starts going to Anika's school and insists that they're dating and that they've already met. The second part is true, but he never really explains that to her. He literally stalks her. She tries to leave school and finds him in her car. She's so freaked out at first that she fake dates a jock for a little bit (the sane one), but we find out the jock is secretly in love with her too. Rather than continuing to try to stay as far away from the stalker (Foster) as possible, Anika decides she wants to talk to him and hang out with him and then kiss him. He literally installs cameras in her house and hacks her devices so he can watch her whenever he wants. His reasoning is that it will keep her safe.

Meanwhile, Anika's other best friend is a dude named Mitchell. I was really happy about this at first because I think there's way too few portrayals of girl-guy friendships that remain friendships. Nope, he's super-crazy-obsessed with her too. However, he's the only interesting character in the whole book. Once I was certain he was a psychopath, I was rooting for him to murder everyone. What's interesting about that is that it's how I watch most horror movies. With minor tweaks, this book could have been a horror piece that I was really into. (Or it could have been sci-fi and she stepped into another dimension -- that would explain why all these guys are suddenly fighting over her.)

The book ends with Anika appearing to live happily ever after with the camera-installing stalker, Foster. This is after Mitchell tries to murder her because he thinks she had sex with Foster. That doesn't seem like a good message to send to young people, at least in my opinion. Add to that the fact that this attempted murder also takes place at Anika's graduation party, where it's specifically stated she still has some drunk relatives hanging around. None of them react, let alone try to save her. There's also an extended flashback written entirely in italics. If this were a couple paragraphs, it wouldn't bother me, but it was so long that my eye starts to go buggy.

I thank Inkitt for giving me free access to this book, but I think their editors could have made this into something a lot better. If Senerella ventures into the horror genre, I would venture into that venture. I think she has strong potential to write something along the lines of Lois Duncan's works. Even the title "Mine" sounds like it would make a decent horror novel. I want nothing to do with her "romance" novels though.