3.28 AVERAGE


So at first I was really excited about this book, but once I started reading it I actually found it kinda boring! I liked Sam as a character but I found Hanna and her friends really annoying. There relationship was quite insta-lovee and it felt kinda forced. In conclusion, it had potential but was very frustrating to read.

This book looked really promising and started off well. It was definitely funny through the whole way through, but that's really all it had going for it. The characters annoyed me sometimes (mostly Stella.) I feel like nothing was really tied up at the end, it was just that something big and bad happened so they all had to act quickly according to that situation and make up and whatever else, but that doesn't tell me where they'll be once this blows over. And the last chapter of Hannah and Sam finally losing their virginity was just so weird and awkwardly written. I'm not sure why it switched back and forth so much like that. The other thing besides humor that this book has going for it is that it's a short quick read, but that's really it.

It pains me to write this but I think I might be outgrowing YA???? There was nothing actually bad about this book except for that I found it hard to keep up with all the side characters but I was sort of just bored throughout? I just didn't feel very connected to the characters or find them relatable. And for a "love story" I felt like the two main characters spent more of the book away from each other than they did with.

Funny & honest UKYA novel makes a perfect summer contemporary that you won’t be able to put down.

(Originally published on my blog, Ashleigh Online.)

This is without doubt one of my favourite books of the year so far and will definitely find its way into the mid-year Top Ten Tuesday coming up soon. It’s honest, funny and bold, and is the perfect book to take to a festival or on a camping trip this summer. What’s more, it’s a UKYA book, making it extra relatable for those of us living in good old England.

Lobsters alternates between the points of view of Hannah and Sam, both believable and realistic teenage characters. They have wonderfully distinct voices and I didn’t for one moment get confused. That’s because Tom Ellen wrote Sam’s parts and Lucy Ivison wrote Hannah’s, and it works like a charm.

This was a rare case in which the instalove really worked for me. When Hannah and Sam first meet in a bathroom they bond over hot Ribena of all things, but their rare connection is rudely interrupted a mere matter of minutes later, tearing them apart before they’d even learned each other’s names.

The weeks that follow see Hannah and Sam constantly thinking about each other, but the obstacles and hiccups they face along the way make the build-up and anticipation of them finally reconciling utterly addictive. I couldn’t put this book down.

I think I’ve got a love for this kind of novel – alternating narratives, especially if they’re male/female, seem to be getting better. I also love the British summertime feel to Lobsters, something I discovered made a welcome return to my bookshelf when I picked up Remix by Non Pratt a week ago (review coming soon). They both feature festivals, too, which is not exactly my scene but I’ve discovered I love reading YA about them.

I do think it’s important to note that Lobsters has a lot of swearing in it, though. It makes the book all the more realistic to me, but I know that some younger readers might find it inappropriate. There’s even the C word at one point – I think it’s the first time I’ve ever witnessed that in YA.

It was Lobsters that made me decide to introduce half stars to Ashleigh Online reviews. It’s such a great book, but there are definitely a few other books I’ve read in my lifetime that I enjoyed more. So 4.5 stars seems perfect. I’m going to be a little stricter with my ratings from now on, and I think the half stars will help with that.

It took a bit to get into the book and then when I was at chapter 8-9 I was already invested and was getting a bit interesting so I wanted to finish to see how it ended. Then when it got to the end it was…ugh - no real words, wasn’t impressed at all.

⭑ 0
Just...no. It was so weird with all the characters having some weird obsession of wanting to lose their virginity. Not to mention, that seemed to be the entire plot of the book. I couldn't get half-way through the book when I did DNF. The main characters were very toxic towards each other by intentionally hurting each other and not wanting to apologize for their actions. I'm not okay with that. Definitely don't recommend.

This is one of those books that people say "Never judge a book by it's cover" about. If it isn't, it should be. A Totally Awkward Love Story is about sex.

Honestly.

Really.

That's what it's about, with a side dash of frenemies and characters you want to punch. Ten minutes in a purple bathroom starts off the most EPIC-ly boring love story, in which I can't actually figure out why they love each other (they both like... hot grape juice?!?!). Hannah lets her friends walk right over her, Sam hooks up every other chapter with a different girl and has some major double standard issues.
Spoiler Sam freaks out because Pax, a guy in an earlier chapter, shows up and Sam finds out that they had a kiss WEEKS AGO; meanwhile, Sam and Hannah had just met up again and he had been full on hooking up with a girl named Miranda/Panda - which Hannah and her friends interrupted. Yeah, sorry, Sam. You are nowhere in the right in this situation.


This book gets all the thumbs down and a one star rating. It should be a negative star.

the book was floppy so that was good. nd i actually liked the characters and u could tell that hannah was written by lucy and sam was written by tom. but the book was painfully straight nd they kept going on abt how they were virgins which... is the whole point of the plot but sometimes they just brought it up where it was kinda unnecessary cl

This book took me a while to finish just because I had a hard time staying interested. Sweet story though!

ik had er meer van verwacht maar zeker een leuk boek