BLURB: Sam and Hannah only have the holidays to find 'The One'. Their lobster. But instead of being epic, their summer is looking awkward. They must navigate social misunderstandings, the plotting of well-meaning friends, and their own fears of being virgins forever to find happiness. But fate is at work to bring them together. And in the end, it all boils down to love (Goodreads).
It's all a bit of cliché, really. But then, I suppose clichés wouldn't be clichés if they weren't based on some sort of tediously predictable truth.
Author: Tom Ellen, Lucy Ivison
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Goodreads rating: 3.42
Pages: 320
Publication: 3rd May 2016 by Delacorte Press
Source: Book Depository | Amazon | Google Books
Reading format: E-book
Review type: Non-spoilery
review
⭐⭐
This book really wasn't my cup of tea. What I expected from this book: a coming-of-age story featuring self-discovery, characters development featuring cute romance. What I got: all of those, but poorly executed. The premise had so much potential! However, I had quite some problems with the book, which consists of:
1. The characters
I'm a character-driven reader, so when the characters are, first of all, unlikeable and second of all, poorly written, it's a total deal-breaker for me. I understand if the characters are annoying and unlikeable. They are teenagers, and teenagers are known to make stupid decisions. They're that everyone-knows-they're-hot-except-them kind of people, seemed special just because they're the only people that cared so much about their study, read books and SO UNLIKE OTHER PEOPLE, and I understand that they're the main characters and the authors intended to make them look more special than the others, but I felt like all of these were shove into my face.
All of the characters in this book were very 2-dimensional AND unlikeable. An elder that was supposed to be THAT cool, wise character who always says the right thing was written so poorly, they turned out to be an immature and annoying character. AND THE FRIEND GROUPS! Both of the main characters have those crappy friends that only exist in crappy white offensive comedy movies that you outgrew but couldn't cut strings with. Even if the characters were written to be annoying on purpose, if their arcs ended better, I would've liked it more.
2. The plot
Maybe I didn't like the plot and didn't see why it was so important because the culture doesn't apply to me. This whole book is only about teenagers being obsessed to lose their virginities. I think the authors tried to make Sam and Hannah's relationship more complicated which added damages to the story. I mean sure, the main goal of this book; to be as awkward as possible, was achieved. But I feel like it could be written so much better. There's a thin line between uncomfortable-awkward and relatable-awkward, and this book was heavy on uncomfortable-awkward.
And there are still some things that weren't unfinished by the time this book ends, and the authors intended the book to be open-ended since the characters were teenagers and who knows what might come. However, I think it is important to address some of the stuff, for example, what happens to their friendships with their crappy friends.
3. The writing style
The writing style was very immature. I feel like if the writing style is okay, I would've given this book at least low 3 stars. It also felt more like everything was more told than shown type of narrative, which is not my cup of tea.
Everything that was unsaid was tainting the memories of the last seven years. Our rooms plastered with millions of photographs, every weekend spent together since we were eleven, but in the end it just amounted to some sort of Mean Girls–style survival of the fittest.
The book feels like something out of Wattpad, written by a pre-teen, and I've read some better writing on Wattpad that was actually written by a pre-teen. This feels more like an average Wattpad book. Maybe this type of writing style would appeal to younger readers, but it didn't appeal to me. And it wasn't about the many pop culture references too, I LOVE POP CULTURE REFERENCES IN YA NOVEL, but I just didn't like the way the authors inserted them into the book. It feels like something that I should like, but I didn't.
So that was it for this book. I wish I love this book, but I really didn't.
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