Book Review: Barbie World by Heidi Acosta

Barbie World (Baby Doll #2)
by Heidi Acosta
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance
Published: August 14th 2013
Format Acquired: ebook for review (thanks Heidi and Giselle of Xpresso Book Tours!)
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Smashwords

“One Night is all it took to change everything between Barbie and me. One night to potentially lose the girl of my dreams forever. How do I prove to her that she can trust me? That all I want to do is protect her carefully guarded heart. I need to prove to her that I want to be a part of her world. But how?”

Dylan lost Barbie once before, now he is determined more than ever to win her heart and trust back. Easier said than done, especially with the new hot guy in town who is in a rock band and is the complete opposite of Dylan.

Barbie has been hurt beyond repair or so she thinks. It would be easier for heart to decide if she didn’t have to protect her little brother. And if Dylan would just put on a shirt! Dylan is not making this easy on her. It helps to have the distraction of the new guy in town cute bad boy Kai. But even though her heart is damaged it still knows what it wants.

When Barbie learns she has a family and with the help of Roxie and Kai, oh and Third and Dylan. They embark on a journey to help bring Barbie closer to a past she never knew existed.

Heidi Acosta brings you the heart felt story of friendship, love and heartbreak in the second book in the Baby doll series Barbie World.

Considering how much I enjoyed Barbie Girl, this book was a huge let down for me. Barbie Girl ended so well with a scene that hinted a happily ever after for Barbie and Dylan so I was really looking forward to this one. Unfortunately it turns out not much has changed between them. In fact, I think things got worst.

While I understand that Barbie living with Dylan's family put a hinge to their relationship or whatever it was they had going on, it still annoyed me that they kept going pushing and pulling for the most part of the book. Barbie would show interest in Dylan, Dylan would attempt to kiss her or something, Barbie would pull away and go to her boy toy Kai, Barbie would then feel like she has no connection with Kai then would gravitate to Dylan again. It's a vicious cycle, one that also made the characters look bad. How much of a push over are they? Dylan's girlfriend would put up with fact that he's clearly in love with Barbie and not her. Kai would happily take Barbie back again and again because he's a badass and that's what badass rockers do, right? Dylan would go back and forth Barbie and what's-her-face. Barbie couldn't make up her freaking mind. Somebody grow a pair and make up their mind already! I think the only two people who actually know what they want and are going after it are Roxie and Third. But the other four? Not. They were all confusing and not at all helping the plot. I just wished there was some kind of character development here. It was frustrating and exhausting having to read the constant push and pull between Barbie and Dylan. After all the drama in the first book, I expected better from Dylan this time. Apparently, he's just like any ordinary teenage guy in real life: indecisive and confusing (ooohhhh- no don't give me that look).

I also didn't like the love triangle. I would've loved seeing Dylan's jealous face and all that if Barbie even felt remotely attracted to Kai. I mean, sure, she thought he was hot and that she could definitely like him but it was only on the surface. There wasn't any point at all in the book where she thought to herself, okay this is it, I'm sticking with this rocker boy. She easily used him as a distraction but he was clearly nothing more than that. Kai was interested and possessive whenever Dylan showed up but it was just there. Like nothing really came out of it! So this whole love triangle was only an unnecessary addition to the story. It only added to my frustration.

The only part of this book that I actually liked was Barbie's journey to finding her relatives. Those were the only parts where I finally saw something else in Barbie that wasn't sad and hung up on Dylan. It also made me happy knowing Barbie had other some semblance of a family who were willing to be a part of her and her brother's life. I just wish there was more of this in the book rather than the whole messed up love triangle (or square, if you count in Dylan's girlfriend). The epilogue was nice too but given all the relationship drama throughout the book, it felt... fake. It was like all the possible happy endings for Barbie and Dylan were crammed in one place. I liked it but not that much.

I honestly wanted to like this book and rate it 3 stars but too many unnecessary drama got in the way. It's too bad because I missed Barbie and Dylan and was expecting so much more to happen between them. This just didn't do it for me.