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A review by drakoulis
Right Where I Left You by Julian Winters
3.0
Given that this is my second book from this author that I give 3-stars, I'm starting to think that maybe the author's writing style isn't for me.
However, the issues I had with Right Where I Left You weren't the same ones with The Summer of Everything . The Summer of Everything suffered from a terrible ending, a pessimistic, gloomy and relatively sad finale.
This book's ending is great. I enjoyed it, I was happy to read it. The problem is everything else.
This book follows comic fan Issac in the last summer before he goes to college. His only friend is Diego, with who he spends almost all of his free time together. Diego is an avid gamer who decided to take a gap year to puruse his game designer dream career. We're introduced to Diego's gamer friends and Isaac's comic book acquaintances, as well the two boys families. And here start the problems:
- The characters aren't really relatable and I didn't feel for them. Issac is whiny and socially awkward and not in a cute way. His parents divorce is supposedly to blame for his trust issues (quite a stretch), him being for some reason (never fully explained) unable to socialize with people, and miscomuunicating even with his best friend.
- Diego is an overall nice person, caring, nerdy, dealing with his mother's pressure to go to college in quite a mature way, but suddenly, when Isaac tries to date Davi, he turns into an absolute jerk. Yeah, jealousy old trope, but the writing of the book made it look as if Isaac was at fault for not...guessing that Diego liked him despite Diego never saying anything? I'm serious, even when they got together, it was Isaac who did the talking and the move in the end.
- Davi appeared nice and very flirty, and the writing was definitely implying he wanted to date Isaac, until suddenly we get told that he only wanted to be friends. Not sold.
- "Practice kiss" is the most ridiculous trope I've ever seen. Sorry.
- Most of the banter and the pop culture references would appeal only to 15-years-olds. I found it borderlie cringe.
Overall, it's a book that has solid premises, but the path it takes relies heavily on miscommunication, jealousy, characters who act in a weird way with no reason, past family trauma (it appears to be a thing with Julian Winters books) affecting the present and of course the comic nerds world (no objections here).
I was expecting something better to be honest, so it gets the rating I give to books I didn't dislike, but didn't exactly captivate me either.
However, the issues I had with Right Where I Left You weren't the same ones with The Summer of Everything . The Summer of Everything suffered from a terrible ending, a pessimistic, gloomy and relatively sad finale.
This book's ending is great. I enjoyed it, I was happy to read it. The problem is everything else.
This book follows comic fan Issac in the last summer before he goes to college. His only friend is Diego, with who he spends almost all of his free time together. Diego is an avid gamer who decided to take a gap year to puruse his game designer dream career. We're introduced to Diego's gamer friends and Isaac's comic book acquaintances, as well the two boys families. And here start the problems:
- The characters aren't really relatable and I didn't feel for them. Issac is whiny and socially awkward and not in a cute way. His parents divorce is supposedly to blame for his trust issues (quite a stretch), him being for some reason (never fully explained) unable to socialize with people, and miscomuunicating even with his best friend.
- Diego is an overall nice person, caring, nerdy, dealing with his mother's pressure to go to college in quite a mature way, but suddenly, when Isaac tries to date Davi, he turns into an absolute jerk. Yeah, jealousy old trope, but the writing of the book made it look as if Isaac was at fault for not...guessing that Diego liked him despite Diego never saying anything? I'm serious, even when they got together, it was Isaac who did the talking and the move in the end.
- Davi appeared nice and very flirty, and the writing was definitely implying he wanted to date Isaac, until suddenly we get told that he only wanted to be friends. Not sold.
- "Practice kiss" is the most ridiculous trope I've ever seen. Sorry.
- Most of the banter and the pop culture references would appeal only to 15-years-olds. I found it borderlie cringe.
Overall, it's a book that has solid premises, but the path it takes relies heavily on miscommunication, jealousy, characters who act in a weird way with no reason, past family trauma (it appears to be a thing with Julian Winters books) affecting the present and of course the comic nerds world (no objections here).
I was expecting something better to be honest, so it gets the rating I give to books I didn't dislike, but didn't exactly captivate me either.