Alienated

Actual rating: 3.5I almost gave this book 3 stars, but I decided to be nice and bump it up to 4 stars. Ultimately, Alienated was decent. I was entertained by the novel and found it to be humorous at times. The plot wasn't great, the characters weren't exactly ‘memorable', and the romance was not the best. I found myself comparing it to [b:The Selection 10507293 The Selection (The Selection, #1) Kiera Cass https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1322103400s/10507293.jpg 15413183] by Kiera Cass, solely because neither book had much substance, yet I found myself enjoying both books.The plot of Alienated was okay. Just okay. It focused on the alien exchange program that was occurring. Aelyx and the other exchange students were sabotaging the proposed alliance by planting a seedling called sh'alear (no,I don't know how to pronounce that, so don't ask) that prevents crop growth. I was confused by this, because Landers did not do a good job explaining how the plant worked or how it would sabotage relations.The characters were okay. There wasn't much character development outside of Aelyx becoming more ‘human', so to speak. Cara was humorous at many times in the book. And Eric? Eric was so dang confusing. He was nice and then mean. I think his theme song would have to be “Hot N Cold” by Katy Perry.And finally, at long last, the romance. It was, unfortunately, cringe-worthy. Was it insta-love? I honestly don't know. It had traces of insta-love. And then they proclaimed their love for each other WAY too early,and it was a bit upsetting.All in all, Alienated was a decent book. A good romance story. I will be reading the second book, since it sounds better than the first one. Don't let this review be a turnoff for you, since the book isn't horrible. Hey, maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did.