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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
While it was still a sweet read about finding oneself and exploring new and various types of relationships, You Have a Match ultimately fell short in providing an exciting execution of its plot. Solid three stars.
Or in other words: I, unfortunately, got bored and had to force myself to finish the book. And I remember adoring [b:Tweet Cute|45045129|Tweet Cute|Emma Lord|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1558456354l/45045129._SY75_.jpg|66924806], so I don’t know what went wrong here. :’(
Or in other words: I, unfortunately, got bored and had to force myself to finish the book. And I remember adoring [b:Tweet Cute|45045129|Tweet Cute|Emma Lord|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1558456354l/45045129._SY75_.jpg|66924806], so I don’t know what went wrong here. :’(
I don’t know totally how I feel about this book so for now I’m rating it 2 stars, it’s okay.
The beginning was so confusing to me, it just jumps right in to all these little things that are necessary later but overwhelming in the first 3 pages. Okay maybe some of that info comes within the first chapter or few. But I remember when I first picked it up earlier this summer I was so confused (and annoyed) that I put it right down.
There was just so much drama. Woe is me for the main character, however I did like her character growth and liked how it wasn’t all about the romance.
Also for some reason I think it would make a great movie but I didn’t love it was a book
The beginning was so confusing to me, it just jumps right in to all these little things that are necessary later but overwhelming in the first 3 pages. Okay maybe some of that info comes within the first chapter or few. But I remember when I first picked it up earlier this summer I was so confused (and annoyed) that I put it right down.
There was just so much drama. Woe is me for the main character, however I did like her character growth and liked how it wasn’t all about the romance.
Also for some reason I think it would make a great movie but I didn’t love it was a book
This book was delightfully sweet but also emotionally packed. I liked that it explored what family means and the way reconnecting, and connecting for the first time, can strengthen the bonds of family. The connection between Abby and Savvy was bumpy at first but their shared goal of finding out what happened slowly brought them together and created a bond that the initial reveal of their connection did not. There was also two sweet romances that had a lot of mutual pining and slow burn, but no real surprise. It was clear Savvy and Mickey, and Abby and Leo belonged together and both wanted to be together.
I also enjoyed the summer camp setting, it was fun and fit with their story really well.
I also enjoyed the summer camp setting, it was fun and fit with their story really well.
Abby decides to try a mail in DNA testing kit in solidarity with her friends. There's a bet between her friend about who is more Irish and the last thing she expects to find out is that she has a sister out there with the same parents she has. Even more, her sister is local and they're only a year a half apart. They decide to go to the same summer camp to get to know each other more without their parents finding out they know about each other.
This is a story about history, friendships, family, and love. I loved the focus of the sisters and their new budding relationship. The chaos that ensues at camp, the people that Abby meets who are exactly what she needed in her life. This book just felt like something that could really happen, the struggles between old friends, what we do to protect the people we love, and the decisions we make that can alter our lives forever. I loved Tweet Cute and Emma Lord did not disappoint!
Thank you NetGalley and Wednesday books for the advanced copy!
This is a story about history, friendships, family, and love. I loved the focus of the sisters and their new budding relationship. The chaos that ensues at camp, the people that Abby meets who are exactly what she needed in her life. This book just felt like something that could really happen, the struggles between old friends, what we do to protect the people we love, and the decisions we make that can alter our lives forever. I loved Tweet Cute and Emma Lord did not disappoint!
Thank you NetGalley and Wednesday books for the advanced copy!
This was cute and I liked it but my primary emotion while reading was stress because teenagers are just THAT bad at communicating their emotions
The premise was too out there. It’s the kind of drama kids enjoy but the adult in the room wasn’t having it. Really loved Tweet Cute so this one came as a disappointing surprise.
Grades 9 and up due to language.
Grades 9 and up due to language.
The summer camp escapism we all need in 2020 - if you loved Emma Lord's previous book Tweet Cute, you'll certainly enjoy this as well! Abby's best friend ropes her into taking a DNA test to hopefully find out more about his birth family, but Abby is the one who ends up getting more than she bargained for with the discovery of previously unknown full sister, and all the assorted implications that follow.
At times I just wanted the main characters to clear up their miscommunications... but I feel like these delayed conversations skirted actually being what drove the plot which was good. All in all, a very cute and light read about self-discovery, how one fits in their family, and how your imperfections form who you are, warts and all.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press & Wednesday Books for providing an advance copy of this book!
At times I just wanted the main characters to clear up their miscommunications... but I feel like these delayed conversations skirted actually being what drove the plot which was good. All in all, a very cute and light read about self-discovery, how one fits in their family, and how your imperfections form who you are, warts and all.
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press & Wednesday Books for providing an advance copy of this book!
I really enjoyed this book overall! It is not heavy on the romance and focuses more on the sister's relationship--which initially was a surprise to me, but I really ended up enjoying their growth. There is a lot of great snarky humor, warm touching moments, and great storytelling. I highly recommend it!
First of all, thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for giving me an ARC of this novel, in exchange for my honest review.
"My life is basically a CW drama right now, is all."
This quote could basically be the entire review, and if you have watched the CW recently, you'd need nothing else. For the purpose of being thorough, I'll keep going.
Every book tends to begin as a question in an author's mind, a "what if..." YOU HAVE A MATCH clearly began as "what if I tried to somewhat recreate The Parent Trap, summer camp included, but gave it more teen drama?" Because anyone who's watched The Parent Trap wanted more teen drama, right?
Abby Day wasn't looking for family when she signed up for a DNA test, but she finds her older sister, Savannah (annoyingly called Savvy about 576 times throughout the book). They meet, because they live like 10 minutes away from each other. It's very anticlimactic and super early in the book, and Savannah (I refuse to call her Savvy) basically forces Abby to sign up for a summer camp where she'll be a counselor so they can work out how it is that Abby's parents gave Savannah up for adoption. Because that's logical, you'll get so much more done at camp than, I don't know, at home asking your parents directly, right?
It so happens that Abby's male best friend, Leo, who she likes and who clearly likes her back but they don't tell each other this because reasons is also in that camp. Coinkidink again!
Shenanigans ensue, Abby plays pranks on Savannah and for two weeks the sisters don't even talk to each other, so the camp thing is totally moot and then the parents arrive and it's dramatic, and then they explain what happened and I don't want to have to tag the whole review for for spoilers, but, it requires even more suspension of disbelief. By this point, I couldn't believe anything anymore.
So, here's what kept me reading: I wanted to know why a set of parents who are NOT teen parents, gave up a baby for a super closed adoption and one and a half years later had another baby. Well, as we learn in a super dramatic but emotionally empty parking lot shouting match:
So, with the mystery that drove me to keep reading explained, I'm left with the bits and bobs I enjoyed and the list of things I did not.
Enjoyable Bits and Bobs:
- Voice. Emma Lord has a distinct voice. It's very quirky and pop-y and definitely not for everyone, but it's well crafted and consistent both within this book and compared to her previous novel, TWEET CUTE.
- Summer camp. The camp pranks, shenanigans, and environment were fun.
- The side characters. I really liked Mickey, Finn, Connie, even Savannah. They weren't fully fleshed out, and Savannah should have been, but at least they were distinguishable.
List of What I Did Not Enjoy:
- All the puns. It's part of the voice, maybe, but at one point I felt like if there was one more pun, I'd scream. They stopped being funny and started taking me out of the narrative.
- Conclusion that did not feel earned. After all that drama and emotional toxicity, all the lies from everyone because, my Lord (ha, I can do puns, too), do these people lie, suddenly it's all okay. 18 years of hurt and pain and anger brushed away over some Thai food, like it's nothing.
- The Love Triangle. There was no need for there to be one. It was obviously lopsided, at no point was Finn ever a real contender, but also, at no point was it explained why Leo and Abby liked each other. We were told repeatedly, we were explained obliquely and straightly how there had been a BEI, an uncomfortable incident last Thanksgiving. But other than that, Leo felt very much like a friend except we kept being told they wanted to kiss.
- Like I said, suspension of disbelief. There was no space for reality in this book. Not for how the whole sister drama was done, not for how these people all knew each other but didn't know each other. We're told Savannah and Abby look the same, at one point it's described as running towards a mirror. But somehow, Leo, who is an old friend of Savannah, and Abby's best friend, doesn't realize his two friends are spitting images? The whole ending up all at the same camp, is also silly. How Abby herself manages to get herself there is too much, as well. Between the coincidences and the plain "this would not happen in real life" it was too much.
- The plot itself. It meandered a lot, dragged at many points, decided to slow down at parts where it didn't make sense to slow down.
- This might be just a pet peeve, but the many cutesy names were grating to read. According to the Acknowledgements, at one point, Emma Lord changed the names halfway through because she hated them all. And she settled on these ones: Savvy, Jemmy, Izzy, Abby, Mickey, Connie, Maggie. See a trend? Savvy was said ad nauseam and Jemmy less so but if they were close on the page, it sounded highly annoying.
I'll end with a phrase at the beginning of the novel that raised my hopes that I'd like this book. Sadly, I didn't, but I still really like the quote:
"If you learn to capture a feeling, it'll always be louder than words"
Sorry the feelings captured by this review aren't the ones we'd all hoped for.
"My life is basically a CW drama right now, is all."
This quote could basically be the entire review, and if you have watched the CW recently, you'd need nothing else. For the purpose of being thorough, I'll keep going.
Every book tends to begin as a question in an author's mind, a "what if..." YOU HAVE A MATCH clearly began as "what if I tried to somewhat recreate The Parent Trap, summer camp included, but gave it more teen drama?" Because anyone who's watched The Parent Trap wanted more teen drama, right?
Abby Day wasn't looking for family when she signed up for a DNA test, but she finds her older sister, Savannah (annoyingly called Savvy about 576 times throughout the book). They meet, because they live like 10 minutes away from each other. It's very anticlimactic and super early in the book, and Savannah (I refuse to call her Savvy) basically forces Abby to sign up for a summer camp where she'll be a counselor so they can work out how it is that Abby's parents gave Savannah up for adoption. Because that's logical, you'll get so much more done at camp than, I don't know, at home asking your parents directly, right?
It so happens that Abby's male best friend, Leo, who she likes and who clearly likes her back but they don't tell each other this because reasons is also in that camp. Coinkidink again!
Shenanigans ensue, Abby plays pranks on Savannah and for two weeks the sisters don't even talk to each other, so the camp thing is totally moot and then the parents arrive and it's dramatic, and then they explain what happened and I don't want to have to tag the whole review for for spoilers, but, it requires even more suspension of disbelief. By this point, I couldn't believe anything anymore.
So, here's what kept me reading: I wanted to know why a set of parents who are NOT teen parents, gave up a baby for a super closed adoption and one and a half years later had another baby. Well, as we learn in a super dramatic but emotionally empty parking lot shouting match:
Spoiler
Abby's parents weren't in the right space for having a baby because her dad had pneumonia and also some heart defect (yes, it's that poorly explained in the book too) and so they gave up their firstborn to their best friends, but then Abby's mother tried to steal the baby back, TWICE. Until the adoptive parents/former best friends got lawyers involved. And after all of this, neither of these couples moved away from where the whole mess went down. This isn't normal, right? If you have to bring in lawyers so that the bio parents legally can't have any contact with your child, you don't stay in a town 10 minutes from them? This was the mystery that kept me reading and boy was I disappointed. Again, reality, what even are you?So, with the mystery that drove me to keep reading explained, I'm left with the bits and bobs I enjoyed and the list of things I did not.
Enjoyable Bits and Bobs:
- Voice. Emma Lord has a distinct voice. It's very quirky and pop-y and definitely not for everyone, but it's well crafted and consistent both within this book and compared to her previous novel, TWEET CUTE.
- Summer camp. The camp pranks, shenanigans, and environment were fun.
- The side characters. I really liked Mickey, Finn, Connie, even Savannah. They weren't fully fleshed out, and Savannah should have been, but at least they were distinguishable.
List of What I Did Not Enjoy:
- All the puns. It's part of the voice, maybe, but at one point I felt like if there was one more pun, I'd scream. They stopped being funny and started taking me out of the narrative.
- Conclusion that did not feel earned. After all that drama and emotional toxicity, all the lies from everyone because, my Lord (ha, I can do puns, too), do these people lie, suddenly it's all okay. 18 years of hurt and pain and anger brushed away over some Thai food, like it's nothing.
- The Love Triangle. There was no need for there to be one. It was obviously lopsided, at no point was Finn ever a real contender, but also, at no point was it explained why Leo and Abby liked each other. We were told repeatedly, we were explained obliquely and straightly how there had been a BEI, an uncomfortable incident last Thanksgiving. But other than that, Leo felt very much like a friend except we kept being told they wanted to kiss.
- Like I said, suspension of disbelief. There was no space for reality in this book. Not for how the whole sister drama was done, not for how these people all knew each other but didn't know each other. We're told Savannah and Abby look the same, at one point it's described as running towards a mirror. But somehow, Leo, who is an old friend of Savannah, and Abby's best friend, doesn't realize his two friends are spitting images? The whole ending up all at the same camp, is also silly. How Abby herself manages to get herself there is too much, as well. Between the coincidences and the plain "this would not happen in real life" it was too much.
- The plot itself. It meandered a lot, dragged at many points, decided to slow down at parts where it didn't make sense to slow down.
- This might be just a pet peeve, but the many cutesy names were grating to read. According to the Acknowledgements, at one point, Emma Lord changed the names halfway through because she hated them all. And she settled on these ones: Savvy, Jemmy, Izzy, Abby, Mickey, Connie, Maggie. See a trend? Savvy was said ad nauseam and Jemmy less so but if they were close on the page, it sounded highly annoying.
I'll end with a phrase at the beginning of the novel that raised my hopes that I'd like this book. Sadly, I didn't, but I still really like the quote:
"If you learn to capture a feeling, it'll always be louder than words"
Sorry the feelings captured by this review aren't the ones we'd all hoped for.