The Truth About You and Me by Amanda Grace

The Truth About You and Me

Publisher: Flux    
Publication date: September 8th 2013
My rating: 3 star

Smart girls aren't supposed to do stupid things.Madelyn Hawkins is super smart. At sixteen, she's so gifted that she can attend college through a special program at her high school. On her first day, she meets Bennet. He's cute, funny, and kind. He understands Madelyn and what she's endured - and missed out on - in order to excel academically and please her parents. Now, for the first time in her life, she's falling in love.
There's only one problem. Bennet is Madelyn's college professor, and he thinks she's eighteen - because she hasn't told him the truth.
The story of their forbidden romance is told in letters that Madelyn writes to Bennet - both a heart-searing ode to their ill-fated love and an apology.

Before I start discussing The Truth About You and Me I need to point out something. I wasn't familiar with the fact Amanda Grace is a pen name for Mandy Hubbard! :O I didn't see this one coming till I read about the author in the end of the book. I understand why she would have a pen name. Amanda's books are darker, realistic YA novels than Mandy's usual bubbly and fun stories. Either way, I will check out Amanda's other books soon. 

Madelyn is one of those super smart people who get the chance to go to college earlier, skip grades and whatnot. She feels like she can never be as good as her brother, who's going to one of those well-known universities. Her father is always pushing her to do better and Madelyn is not so happy about it. Everything changes when she meets Bennet, her bio professor. 

Bennet thinks Madelyn is a 19 year-old college student. They fall in love but he doesn't take any actions until the class he's teaching her ends. Madelyn has never been in love before Bennet and she doesn't tell him she's only sixteen. I liked Bennet more than Madelyn because even if it was wrong for a student to date a teacher, he did do the right thing and waited until they no longer were in that position while Madelyn kept lying. The reason I didn't like her is that she's clearly smart and yet she was stupid enough to think that kind of relationship would ever work. 

The Truth About You and Me reminds me of one of my all-time favorite books - Drowning Instinct by Ilsa J. Bick. It's another book about teacher-student relationship,  Sadly, it wasn't as good as Bick's. While Bick wrote a book which seemed more mature, Grace's appeared still too childish.