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A review by sandrareilly513
When I Am Through with You by Stephanie Kuehn
2.0
Ben struggles to find his own self-worth while saving his classmates from imminent danger during a school-sponsored hiking excursion in this YA adventure. Ben is a small-town kid who has never left his hometown thanks to a harrowing, desperate act as a child that has left his mother widowed, permanently injured, mentally unstable, and an alcoholic. He feels beholden to her to help make her life simpler in any way he can. Despite becoming codependent on his very self-reliant and confident girlfriend, Rose, Ben is ready for her to move on from him as he feels he will never be more than he already is now. This hiking trip is his chance to prove he has more to offer Rose, and the world, but when everything begins to go wrong it will be up to him to save their lives.
Thoughts: I hate to say this, but I was not a fan of this story. I feel it started as an interesting suspense/thriller and became an adventure/survival that wasn't quite as interesting. Maybe it's because I'm not a huge adventure/survival fan, but the characters also began to wear on my nerves and the lack of real communication and the continuous poor decision-making was frustrating for me. There is a demographic of my HS students that might find the fast pace and rule breaking interesting enough to hold their attention, but with the abundance of adult content (several descriptive sex scenes) and language, I would keep the appropriateness level at grades 12+.
Thoughts: I hate to say this, but I was not a fan of this story. I feel it started as an interesting suspense/thriller and became an adventure/survival that wasn't quite as interesting. Maybe it's because I'm not a huge adventure/survival fan, but the characters also began to wear on my nerves and the lack of real communication and the continuous poor decision-making was frustrating for me. There is a demographic of my HS students that might find the fast pace and rule breaking interesting enough to hold their attention, but with the abundance of adult content (several descriptive sex scenes) and language, I would keep the appropriateness level at grades 12+.