A review by wardenred
Only Mostly Devastated by Sophie Gonzales

emotional funny hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Nah, but it’s fine. What happens over summer stays over summer, right?

I really enjoyed Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales earlier this month, and it kind of made me crave more teenage messiness. So when I was looking through the unread books on my ereader and spotted this one by the same author, I felt compelled to crack it open. It didn't 100% scratch the itch because the characters here are just a bit younger and everything is so very high school—I think I liked the mixture of teenage angst and reality tv glitz and glamour a bit better, or maybe it was just more refreshing. But overall, this book is exactly what it promises to be, and it was a really fun reading experience with just the right cocktail of drama and laugh-out-loud quips.

I honestly really like how Sophie Gonzales writes teenagers. She just really, really captures that time when you're already dealing with the big, complex, difficult things, but you don't yet have the experience nor the mental capacity to handle them, so you keep making things worse for yourself in the name of self-preservation and catastrophizing all the wrong parts of the situation and just. You know. Overall living and growing and learning. There's a fine line, I feel, between encapsulating those authentic big emotions and going over the top for drama's sake, and this author walks it beautifully.

One thing I specifically appreciated were all the side characters and how all of them had their own deals and troubles that drove their choices. Some of them—Lara in particular—almost overshadowed the main plotline for me at times. Though Ollie, the MC, consistently drew my attention to his own drama for sure, what with his charming sense of humor and love for music (I really enjoyed all of the music parts in the book, by the way). All in all, this was fun and touching, if a little predictable.
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