Mad Love by Suzanne Selfors

When you're the daughter of the bestselling Queen of Romance, life should be pretty good. But 16-year-old Alice Amorous has been living a lie ever since her mother was secretly hospitalized for mental illness. After putting on a brave front for months, time is running out. The next book is overdue, and the Queen can't write it. Alice needs a story for her mother—and she needs one fast.

That's when she meets Errol, a strange boy who claims to be Cupid, who insists that Alice write about the greatest love story in history: his tragic relationship with Psyche. As Alice begins to hear Errol's voice in her head and see things she can't explain, she must face the truth—that she's either inherited her mother's madness, or Errol is for real (Summary taken from goodreads).

So, I’ve come to realize that many of the books I find nowadays come from browsing Barnes and Noble, stumbling upon them at the library, and surprisingly blogging! A lot of books that I read are because I find them on other blogs, which if you ask me, is pretty awesome and helpful. Anyway, there is a point I’m trying to make through this rambling. Mad Love just so happened to be one of those books. I was browsing through some of the blogs I follow and I saw a few reviews for it. After reading them, I thought the concept was pretty cool and went to the library and borrowed it.

            At first, I was disappointed with the book and wanted to put it down, but I’m extremely glad I didn’t because it ended up being a great read! The beginning was bit slow. It took the first hundred pages or so to pick up (or at least, in my opinion, it did anyway), but once it did, I practically devoured it. It was a refreshing, new love story.

            I thought Alice was a wonderful character who was easy to relate to. She was wicked funny too. I loved the fact that she cared so much about her mother and was willing to help her out, even if it meant writing a romance novel, something she had never thought of doing in a million years. Even the two guys fighting over Alice grabbed my attention and dragged me in. There’s Tony, the new boy, who Alice is totally head over heels for. He’s sweet and it’s obvious that he cares about her. Then, there’s Errol, who claims to be the one and only Cupid. His character surprised me. Everyone pictures Cupid as a curly-haired baby in a diaper that shots people and makes them fall in love. Errol is nothing like that. He’s pale white and wears dark clothing, such as a hoodie that hides his face. It was definitely an interesting perspective on such a well known figure.

            As for the plot, in my opinion, it took a while to pick up. I had thought about putting this book down multiple times, but I stuck with it. And I am so glad that I did. It had such an amazing story! At first, it was a bit of a drag to read about Alice and her mother, but then Errol comes in and things start to pick up. I’m not going to lie. He was kind of creepy at first, insisting that she must write his story, but after a while I began to enjoy his presence. The writing only added to the story, perfectly targeting its intended teen audience.

             Mad Love is a cute read that I would definitely recommend. Not only does it have some romance, but it puts a new spin on a classic story from Greek mythology. If you read Mad Love and enjoyed it, be sure to check out Saving Juliet. It’s just as good. So, if you’ve read it or not, let me know what you think :)