I've never been big on romance novels or films. This book did not change that.
Dates read: March 10 - March 17
Genre(s): Contemporary Romance, Young Adult
Rating: 2 stars (it was ok)
Here's how this story goes:
Girl's dad dies. Girl's mom moves her & her little brother from Texas to Michigan. Girl hates Michigan. Girl meets older boy across the street. Girl loves Michigan. Girl experiences shocking discoveries and ups and downs. And so on. Not great, Not terrible.
I started reading this because I heard that the author included Avett Brothers song lyrics (my favorite band!) There are lyrics at the beginning of each chapter, and kind of fit with the subject of the chapters. Sadly, they were not enough for me to give this book one more star.
While main character Layken is 18 and still in high school, I found her to be extremely immature, impulsive, and unnecessarily explosive at times. Without giving anything away, there were several weird plot "twists" that made me go "wait, what?" and made the entire story seem unrealistic although it was meant to be realistic. It made it feel like the author was just adding new stuff in an attempt to extend the story to novel length, or to be able to say, "PLOT TWIST!"
There were also several over-repeated phrases throughout. You seriously would not believe how many times these people talk about carving pumpkins, lol. Overall, it was easy to breeze through, as with each twist I wondered what the heck Layken was going to say or do next. I found myself smiling or laughing aloud several times--either from "cute" stuff (to which I quickly reminded myself that the characters had only known each other for three days and therefore could not possibly be "in love" with each other already*), or from the ridiculousness of the entire plot and subplots.
I feel like the story could have benefited from more characterization of secondary characters like Layken's best friend, Eddie, because she was super interesting. She could have her own novel, actually. Probably even a 4- or 5-star one. Yeah, I'd rather read that.
And might I add that the slam poetry was terrible? Even though there were words bolded and italicized, I had no idea how to read the slam poems as performative pieces. It just sounded like annoying yelling, unnecessary emphasis, and random words strung together in my head. And they were just written poorly. By every character that wrote one. Eddie's was maybe the least terrible of them all--another reason she should have her own book. Who would sign a petition if I started one?
I looked this book up on goodreads and noticed that there are two more books in this series. Reviewers say they are basically rehashings of this first one (especially the third one, being Layken and Will's story from his point of view.) Needless to state, I will not be reading those. Being slammed by Slammed was enough.
Read this if you want to continually say, "whaaat??"
*I really hate reading or seeing this type of thing. Everyone knows that saying you "love" or that you're "in love" with someone after having only known them for a few days is unrealistic and plain ridiculous. And teenagers saying it that early is even worse. Why do writers still write like that?!
Girl's dad dies. Girl's mom moves her & her little brother from Texas to Michigan. Girl hates Michigan. Girl meets older boy across the street. Girl loves Michigan. Girl experiences shocking discoveries and ups and downs. And so on. Not great, Not terrible.
I started reading this because I heard that the author included Avett Brothers song lyrics (my favorite band!) There are lyrics at the beginning of each chapter, and kind of fit with the subject of the chapters. Sadly, they were not enough for me to give this book one more star.
While main character Layken is 18 and still in high school, I found her to be extremely immature, impulsive, and unnecessarily explosive at times. Without giving anything away, there were several weird plot "twists" that made me go "wait, what?" and made the entire story seem unrealistic although it was meant to be realistic. It made it feel like the author was just adding new stuff in an attempt to extend the story to novel length, or to be able to say, "PLOT TWIST!"
There were also several over-repeated phrases throughout. You seriously would not believe how many times these people talk about carving pumpkins, lol. Overall, it was easy to breeze through, as with each twist I wondered what the heck Layken was going to say or do next. I found myself smiling or laughing aloud several times--either from "cute" stuff (to which I quickly reminded myself that the characters had only known each other for three days and therefore could not possibly be "in love" with each other already*), or from the ridiculousness of the entire plot and subplots.
I feel like the story could have benefited from more characterization of secondary characters like Layken's best friend, Eddie, because she was super interesting. She could have her own novel, actually. Probably even a 4- or 5-star one. Yeah, I'd rather read that.
And might I add that the slam poetry was terrible? Even though there were words bolded and italicized, I had no idea how to read the slam poems as performative pieces. It just sounded like annoying yelling, unnecessary emphasis, and random words strung together in my head. And they were just written poorly. By every character that wrote one. Eddie's was maybe the least terrible of them all--another reason she should have her own book. Who would sign a petition if I started one?
I looked this book up on goodreads and noticed that there are two more books in this series. Reviewers say they are basically rehashings of this first one (especially the third one, being Layken and Will's story from his point of view.) Needless to state, I will not be reading those. Being slammed by Slammed was enough.
Read this if you want to continually say, "whaaat??"
*I really hate reading or seeing this type of thing. Everyone knows that saying you "love" or that you're "in love" with someone after having only known them for a few days is unrealistic and plain ridiculous. And teenagers saying it that early is even worse. Why do writers still write like that?!