5th May to 18th May
Kindle
I should probably preface this review by saying that usually this would not be my kind of book as my teens were quite difficult so I don't tend to relate to books written from the perspective of teens. However that being said I did actually enjoy this one a little more than others as it touched on some topics that are rarely covered.
So as always I will start with the good :)
What I loved most about this book is the friendships. Recently I've become a big fan of friendships that are written well and the relationships in this book just made me feel all warm and fuzzy. In most novels written from a teen perspective (especially a female teen) authors tend to write about people back stabbing and being really catty with their friends but this book was so different in that aspect and I could really relate to it because it felt more realistic. Another thing I really liked was the contrast in families between the Chathams and Sydney's family. Sydney's family, as well as being quite well off, are really organised and structured and care a great deal about how they are viewed by others but you can tell they really love each other. Then you have the Chathams where they seem to be a lot more chaotic, everyone has their own things going on, everyone is so different but when things get hard they are one strong unit. I loved how it showed how two completely backgrounds can be so similar.
Now there wasn't anything I particularly disliked but there were a few things that I didn't really enjoy. Firstly I didn't really feel like the love interest was done well. What I have noticed with books and TV shows is that characters tend to start falling in love before they have a conversation about anything at all. I don't quite mean insta-love because this relationship is quite a slow burn but they never talk about anything real or anything about their specific personalities so the relationship didn't feel realistic for me. Also the love interest doesn't really add anything to the novel especially for the first 60% or so, so much so that I believe if you took their parts out of the beginning you probably wouldn't even notice. The main thing I had an issue with though was every negative situation that arose could have been solved with one conversation - some may have taken more than one conversation but most of the time a simple short discussion would have stopped these things happening. This is a gripe I have with many books and it seems to be quite common but it was particularly frustrating with this book because sometimes Sydney would think about talking things through and then wouldn't.
Overall this book was just a little bit flat for me nothing in it raised it above average just like nothing dragged it below average. I wouldn't re-read it again but I'm glad I read it because I think it will get me into more YA contemporary.
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