Scan barcode
A review by kayelina
Speed of Life by J. M. Kelly
4.0
a spoiler free review
Speed of Life is an honest YA novel about two twins, Amber and Crystal, that plan to be the first in the family to graduate high school and not get pregnant young like all their relatives before them. But when just that happens, the sisters still become determined to make something of themselves, including new little baby Natalie into the picture. But when Crystal gets the opportunity to apply for a college in Kansas and gets in, suddenly, things don’t seem as simple as moving out and graduating like it did before. Tangled in a web of lies that dig Crystal deeper and deeper into something she suddenly becomes unsure of, J.M. Kelly’s raw contemporary book portrays what life is like for people who don’t have much but their own demons and yet still somehow turn it into something beautiful and hopeful with just a little love and honesty.
I have to admit and say at first, Speed of Life was very not my speed. Pun intended. Crystal is the main protagonist we follow with a first person POV narrative and she insists on telling us she’s a tomboy and “not like other girls” every second she gets just because she’s a mechanic. It started to bog me down as I felt this was the only faucet of her personality. She owns an old Mustang that she semi-restored I suppose and she never lets us forget how cool it is to other people. I, as far from a car buff as you can get, did not get the deal or hype no matter how many times it was drilled in about how “she never let anyone drive it.” The parts where “car talk” was involved was just flashy and was only meant to show off how much Crystal (or the author) truly knew about cars instead of progressing the story. Which was fine but overdone. You got me at “she worked at a mechanic shop.” I was already impressed. There’s a scene towards the end where she changes a tire and goes step by step through how to do it and I’m like… I’m 300 pages in. I KNOW Crystal KNOWS about cars. It was just to show much she knows and how little the other character didn’t know and I’m like… bro. Let us move on.
This book truly left me wanting more and not in a good way. I am a fantasy novel lover so long complex plots, twists and turns, and magical worlds really excite me so going to such a book grounded in reality I am wondering if that was my main problem. The book does attempt to give a twist in the end and I didn’t see it coming but others did so I can't tell if it was a success. I just know for me personally, I didn’t think it matched with the plot until it did some thorough explaining and even then, I thought it was still far-fetched.
I thought this book would be like the last one I read, Trouble by Non Platt that goes through the motions of people discovering someone is pregnant and the journey of the pregnancy when Kelly’s starts right as little Natalie is about seven months old. So we’ve already seen how the twins incorporate and include Natalie into their daily lives and I will say that part was interesting and even scared me away from having kids even more. Very stressful to think: who’s picking Natalie when? How? What time?
Kelly does an amazing job of painting a world in which a family doesn’t have much. The kids live with their mom and stepdad who are more lazy than anything. They work but don’t help out much. They aren’t alcoholic deadbeats but they have been known to steal the girls money for bingo gambling from time to time so the girls are pretty much on their own. They struggle between choosing to graduate high school or drop out full time and work because the money would be worth it and those are real questions real people have to face in their life. Is my education more important than paying for rent and keeping food on the table? And this novel tackles that along with figuring out accepting responsibility for your actions as the girls sacrifice their youth and free time. The girls struggle with how to replace damaged and old baby items, how to pay for a simple speeding ticket, hiding and rationing food for later. All these were interesting sides to the twins story that I loved hearing and reading because I often rarely see the struggle. I think authors use financial struggles as a story sprinkle instead of actually part of the plot cake. (Did you like my metaphor?)
The ending or last quarter of the book as I’ve seen in some reviews really does need to be rewritten. It is truly all over the place. All of it was dramatic and probably the least realistic thing in the book. The way baby Natalie did come into the world did upset me a little bit. Natalie was conceived on a iffy night that no one really remembers so that rubbed me the wrong way and even though it turned out “okay” in the end. I felt if this happened to my friend, I could see more skeletons in the closet that needed to be processed later. I like how it was resolved though and I will say that I was sad to have it ended. I was heartwarming to see Crystal reach a decision and finally have peace because it was bittersweet and I did grow to love these sisters as characters.
A part of me wants to say they lucked out with the people in their life. Some turn out to play a more important role than I originally thought and I will say I didn’t see it coming but that might’ve been because I took a 20 day break in the middle of the book before I finished reading it. My bad, I bought a dog.
All in all, not a bad read. It was very dry and the font is so big with the paragraphs spaced out the 340 something pages fly by like it’s nothing, which I feel some publishing companies do to make the book seem fuller and a longer read but us Goodreaders know better. I would recommend this to people who like chick lit read about sisterhood and growing up. It doesn’t deviate from that or try to make itself a story that isn’t what it is. Truly it's about two sisters and the promises they make to each other, which in it of itself, is a good reason to read any book.
Thanks for making it this far. Follow me on Instagram for more reviews @Kayelina
Speed of Life is an honest YA novel about two twins, Amber and Crystal, that plan to be the first in the family to graduate high school and not get pregnant young like all their relatives before them. But when just that happens, the sisters still become determined to make something of themselves, including new little baby Natalie into the picture. But when Crystal gets the opportunity to apply for a college in Kansas and gets in, suddenly, things don’t seem as simple as moving out and graduating like it did before. Tangled in a web of lies that dig Crystal deeper and deeper into something she suddenly becomes unsure of, J.M. Kelly’s raw contemporary book portrays what life is like for people who don’t have much but their own demons and yet still somehow turn it into something beautiful and hopeful with just a little love and honesty.
I have to admit and say at first, Speed of Life was very not my speed. Pun intended. Crystal is the main protagonist we follow with a first person POV narrative and she insists on telling us she’s a tomboy and “not like other girls” every second she gets just because she’s a mechanic. It started to bog me down as I felt this was the only faucet of her personality. She owns an old Mustang that she semi-restored I suppose and she never lets us forget how cool it is to other people. I, as far from a car buff as you can get, did not get the deal or hype no matter how many times it was drilled in about how “she never let anyone drive it.” The parts where “car talk” was involved was just flashy and was only meant to show off how much Crystal (or the author) truly knew about cars instead of progressing the story. Which was fine but overdone. You got me at “she worked at a mechanic shop.” I was already impressed. There’s a scene towards the end where she changes a tire and goes step by step through how to do it and I’m like… I’m 300 pages in. I KNOW Crystal KNOWS about cars. It was just to show much she knows and how little the other character didn’t know and I’m like… bro. Let us move on.
This book truly left me wanting more and not in a good way. I am a fantasy novel lover so long complex plots, twists and turns, and magical worlds really excite me so going to such a book grounded in reality I am wondering if that was my main problem. The book does attempt to give a twist in the end and I didn’t see it coming but others did so I can't tell if it was a success. I just know for me personally, I didn’t think it matched with the plot until it did some thorough explaining and even then, I thought it was still far-fetched.
I thought this book would be like the last one I read, Trouble by Non Platt that goes through the motions of people discovering someone is pregnant and the journey of the pregnancy when Kelly’s starts right as little Natalie is about seven months old. So we’ve already seen how the twins incorporate and include Natalie into their daily lives and I will say that part was interesting and even scared me away from having kids even more. Very stressful to think: who’s picking Natalie when? How? What time?
Kelly does an amazing job of painting a world in which a family doesn’t have much. The kids live with their mom and stepdad who are more lazy than anything. They work but don’t help out much. They aren’t alcoholic deadbeats but they have been known to steal the girls money for bingo gambling from time to time so the girls are pretty much on their own. They struggle between choosing to graduate high school or drop out full time and work because the money would be worth it and those are real questions real people have to face in their life. Is my education more important than paying for rent and keeping food on the table? And this novel tackles that along with figuring out accepting responsibility for your actions as the girls sacrifice their youth and free time. The girls struggle with how to replace damaged and old baby items, how to pay for a simple speeding ticket, hiding and rationing food for later. All these were interesting sides to the twins story that I loved hearing and reading because I often rarely see the struggle. I think authors use financial struggles as a story sprinkle instead of actually part of the plot cake. (Did you like my metaphor?)
The ending or last quarter of the book as I’ve seen in some reviews really does need to be rewritten. It is truly all over the place. All of it was dramatic and probably the least realistic thing in the book. The way baby Natalie did come into the world did upset me a little bit. Natalie was conceived on a iffy night that no one really remembers so that rubbed me the wrong way and even though it turned out “okay” in the end. I felt if this happened to my friend, I could see more skeletons in the closet that needed to be processed later. I like how it was resolved though and I will say that I was sad to have it ended. I was heartwarming to see Crystal reach a decision and finally have peace because it was bittersweet and I did grow to love these sisters as characters.
A part of me wants to say they lucked out with the people in their life. Some turn out to play a more important role than I originally thought and I will say I didn’t see it coming but that might’ve been because I took a 20 day break in the middle of the book before I finished reading it. My bad, I bought a dog.
All in all, not a bad read. It was very dry and the font is so big with the paragraphs spaced out the 340 something pages fly by like it’s nothing, which I feel some publishing companies do to make the book seem fuller and a longer read but us Goodreaders know better. I would recommend this to people who like chick lit read about sisterhood and growing up. It doesn’t deviate from that or try to make itself a story that isn’t what it is. Truly it's about two sisters and the promises they make to each other, which in it of itself, is a good reason to read any book.
Thanks for making it this far. Follow me on Instagram for more reviews @Kayelina