The Traveling Man

DNF @ 36%. I'm so disappointed. I've had a really hard time getting into books this year so I was thrilled when I couldn't put this book down. I loved the premise of the story. A young girl named Aimee meets a boy named Kes who is in town with the carnival and befriends him. Their friendship spans a number of years where they only see each other for the two weeks each summer that the carnival is in town.

Over the years, their relationship becomes romantic. The summer when they're 16 years old, Aimee's nemesis Camilla sets her sights on Kes. Kes, wanting to stop Camilla from bullying Aimee, sets her up and makes Camilla believe she's going on a date with Kes. This is where the book was completely ruined for me. Somehow Kes gets his two older friends to hook up with a drunk/high 16-year-old Camilla. He films it on Camilla's cell phone and sends it to all of her contacts. This is an obviously appalling thing to do so it baffles me as to why a female author would make one of her main characters do something like this. I don't feel like it was even a necessary part of the story and I'm so mad that the author took it in that direction. Ugh.