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kelsey3 's review for:
The Unexpected Everything
by Morgan Matson
Overall: 5!
Book Breakdown —
Characters: I loved them all. They were so well developed and all of them were written so uniquely. I never forgot who a character was or forgot their name or got two characters mixed up.
I loved all of the friends, although towards the end I began to really lose love for one, but more on that later. Palmer was my favorite of the friends b/c of her upbeat, positive attitude. Toby was my 2nd favorite b/c I liked her spunk. Andy would be my third favorite b/c of her character development & growth. Bri was my least favorite due to her terrible friendship skills - but before her bad decisions she was fine - though I did find her to be the least fleshed out of the friends. I loved Clark & how nice he was, & how much he wanted to get to know Andy, along with the fact that he had a really cool career path. Tom was also pretty nice as a character but wasn’t in the book enough for me to love him (although the bromance between Clark & Tom was adorable)! Wyatt was my least favorite. Andy’s dad was also the best and I really enjoyed seeing their relationship develop.
Pacing/ length: this was an incredibly long book, however I really enjoyed all of it. It did take me about 100 pages to really get into the groove of the story, but even then everything was tied together so well & flowed perfectly. It made for a really well written story with deep emotions and well thought out relationships & plots. The length added layers to the story & ultimately made it more impactful.
Cover design: I absolutely adored the cover so much. I mean, who doesn’t want to see a bunch of dogs in front of an ice cream truck on the front of their book cover? Plus, once you take the dust jacket off, there is a really nice photograph on the inside of the dust cover of Andy & the adorable main dog of the book, Bertie. To top it all off, the hardback itself is yellow & white which makes it stand out from its counterparts. I loved all of that.
Plot: I don’t read too many contemporary novels so I don’t have much to compare it to, however I loved every second of this book. I loved the plot. I wasn’t on the edge of my seat like I am when I read fantasy, but I didn’t want to put the book down b/c it was just too interesting. I simply wanted to keep reading so I could be a part of their world. I think the author did a wonderful job of building the world & developing the characters & mapping out a very detailed plot.
Reading Medium: hardback, ebook, & some audiobook. Mostly ebook & hard back.
Summary—
Andie Walker has her summer all mapped out. She’s headed to pre-pre Med Summer Camp at a prestigious college campus. However, that all changes when her father endures a political scandal & her internship is ripped away from her within days of leaving. Now, with nothing left to do for the summer, & her estranged father being home with her all summer for the first time in a long time, Andie is at a loss.
Luckily Andie has a squad of best friends to help her figure it all out: Palmer, Toby, & Bri. Her girlfriends all have paths they are following for the summer though. Palmer is working in a play, Toby is working at an art museum, & Bri is working at the movie theater. Plus all of the ladies have their hearts set on boyfriends & crushes. Palmers going steady with her boyfriend Tom. Toby’s crushing on Wyatt hardcore, & Bri is quiet about her love life.
Given all of her friends have internships & jobs lined up for the summer, Andy realizes she has to as well in order to stay on track for college which leads her to an unconventional job of walking dogs for which she has no experience. Andy learns quickly though & actually begins to really enjoy it.
To amplify her summer fun she wants to have a relationship. Lucky for her she begins walking Bertie who is being watched by a handsome & awkward young man, named Clark. As the summer rolls on, she walks dogs, begins a relationship with Clark - the famous author - repairs her strained relationship with her father, & begins to truly live in the moment. But as the summer comes to a close, things start to blow up in her face: her dad is cleared of all wrongdoing & starts to return to his normal political life, reminding Andy of how his political career strained their relationship. Her boyfriend Clark, who she is head over heels in love with, is moving back to Colorado. Finally, her best friends all become mad at each other & are torn apart when it’s discovered that Bri has been secretly dating & sleeping with Toby’s crush, Wyatt, all summer. Andie finds out a day before the other girls & convinces Bri to keep it a secret in a feeble attempt to keep the friendship from imploding. When the lies are discovered among the friends & Andies fear of Clarke moving away & the fear of her dad returning to DC mounts, Andie begins to regress into the person she was before she met Clarke; she stuffs her real feelings down, lies, & tries to maintain the appearance of a perfect life on the outside while being miserable on the inside. After a lot of emotional moments later, she realizes she’s wrong to regress, & she sets out to correct her regression; she saves her dad from public humiliation before he quits his political career, attempts to salvage her friendships, & professes her love for Clarke in front of a room of onlookers. Though things will likely never be the same with her group of friends, Andy learns to accept the change. She continues to be close with her dad & dates Clarke who transfers to a school closer to Andy. She also refocuses her career & college path when she realizes she actually wants to be a veterinarian b/c she has such a lovely time walking dogs. Above all, Andy learns to be her best self as she grows & moves on with life.
Detailed Review—
I read a review by “Blog of a Bookaholic” & she completely captured how I felt about this book so I’m going to quote her review a ton in my review b/c she sums it up so well! Go check her review out here!
“This book is gorgeous. It's funny & heartwarming & bittersweet & real. It's summer sunsets, beach trips, romance, friendship & family. It's about forgiveness & growth, honesty & wearing your heart on your sleeve. It captures perfectly the exhilarating beauty of a summer filled with dazzling possibility & discovery.” (Blog of a Bookaholic Review).
I loved the characters of this book so flipping much. I loved all the friends & the love interests & the father. But right now I’m going to focus on Andie. She was great b/c she was so realistic. She wasn’t super special or chosen to save the world, but she wasn’t a Mary Sue either. She was a perfect balance. She didn’t command armies or lead a revolution. She was just a normal teenage girl who was growing up & making mistakes and learning.
Over everything though, I LOVED how Andie & the other characters were mature. It’s so hard to find characters in YA that are mature & realistic but Andie was, as were most of her counterparts. As Blog of a Bookaholic stated: “FINALLY. A YA BOOK WHERE THE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY ACT THEIR AGE. A lot of YA books feature characters that are either a 40 year old in a 17-year-old's body, or a 12-year-old in a 17-year-old's body. There's generally no in between. However, Morgan Matson wrote characters that were mature & responsible (for the most part), which I loved… I'm so glad to see teenagers that aren't stupidly ignorant/irresponsible getting represented! THANK YOU, MATSON.” It made such a difference reading from a realistically mature characters POV. Let’s write more of that please.
Speaking of Andie, her character development was perfect. It ebbed & flowed so organically. I’m so used to reading books where the protagonist finally learns his/her lesson at the end of the book & finally makes changes to his/her life in the last several chapters of the book, but Andie learned about herself early on and continually worked on her development throughout. Plus, she did regress a bit which is natural but then she corrected course once again. It was so authentic & I LOVED it.
Now, let’s talk about Clark. He was a sweetie & I loved how Matson portrayed him. In a lot of YA, specifically contemporary, young men are portrayed poorly. They are over simplified often & made out to be playboys or jerks or over the top sweet & unrealistic. But with Matson’s novel there was none of that. Clark was sweet & kind, but still got frustrated & made it known when he needed to. He was shy & awkward, but kind & attentive. He also was a best selling author of 2 fantasy novels which features heavily in the story & is so cool. More than these details though, I adored how Matson molded Clark. He wanted more with Andie than a superficial fling. He didn’t want casual talk, but genuinely wanted to get to know her & in turn forced her to change for the better if she wanted to keep him in her life. He was well rounded, well thought out, & complex which was refreshing for a YA love interest.
I also appreciated the bromance between Tom (Palmer's boyfriend) & Clark. It was so wholesome & real! I liked how the young ladies didn’t distance themselves when they got boyfriends but instead the boyfriends hung out with one another. They all grew with each other instead of away from another. It was refreshing for real life & fiction. Loved it so much!
Andie's friends were another beautiful point of interest in this book. Her friends (Palmer, Bri, & Toby) were so unique & amazing. I usually have trouble remembering friends’ names in books b/c they all blend together to me, but these young women did not. They were unique & each had their own flare & voice which made them memorable. I never got them confused with one another or forgot who was who. Plus, they were a realistic friend group. They fought & grew and learned together. They weren’t inseparable to an unhealthy degree either. They were just good friends who worked together to grow, learn, & live. It was amazing & I wanted to be friends with them in real life.
I do want to stop here really quick & put in a GIANT SPOILER ALERT b/c I want to mention how even though I enjoyed the friendship dynamics, I did not like Bri by the end of the book. She went behind Toby's back, & not only dated Wyatt, but also slept with him. That’s a huge no-no for me. And then she had the audacity to play the victim in the situation? That was so wrong & she was my least favorite of the friends even before that incident, simply b/c she was the least fleshed out of all of the friends. Regardless, I think her decision to go behind her best friend’s back & be with Wyatt was handled so poorly on her part; this has nothing to do with character development or plot or writing style. All of that was perfect. This part of the plot was just so darn good it had me freaking out b/c I loved it all so much. It was beautifully developed in the story, & it makes me love the book that much more, but I couldn’t go the whole review without mentioning it, b/c I had VERY strong feelings about it when I read it.
Ok moving on… Again I will refer to Blog of a Bookaholic to explain how I feel about Andie’s dad. “Andie's Dad was such a good guy. His development was incredible. He went from being a distant father that had been overcome by grief, who completely involved himself in his career after his wife's death to an involved, loving father. I thought his realization & journey to becoming who he was at the end of the book was, again, written brilliantly.” The part where Andie & her father got into a huge fight & hashed long kept raw emotions out was so intense & actually made me tear up, which I have NEVER done with a book before. It was so incredibly realistic how they’re conversation moved & how their relationship developed. Seriously, I loved their relationship so much. Seeing it build up & hold strong steady was so fulfilling & rewarding. Especially as a YA reader, where parents are often an after thought. Can’t stress enough how much I loved the family dynamics in this masterpiece of a novel!
Quoting Blog of a Bookaholic again:
“Let's talk about the friendship between Andie, Bri, Toby & Palmer. In this book, we have a positive all-female friendship group. They supported one another, loved one another & cared for one another. There was no fake friendship between the four girls which was SO NICE to see. They were all so different, yet their dynamics were brilliant. I also LOVED the added layer of authenticity & realism that accompanied The Unexpected Everything due to their group texts. YES, YOU READ THAT CORRECT - The Unexpected Everything contained snippets of messages between the characters! I LOVE IT WHEN BOOKS DO THIS. It was even complete with emojis! MY MILLENIAL HEART IS HAPPY. Another thing I commend Morgan Matson for is that the characters typed like actual teenagers. There was none of "c u l8ter". It was full sentences, which is how teenagers actually message.” When I read this I freaked out. Blog of a Bookaholic actually put into words what I couldn’t. Matson managed to make the teenagers realistic & it made for a truly wonderful reading experience. Bravo Matson, bravo!
To summarize the relationships in this book I will reference Blog of a Bookaholic again: “THE RELATIONSHIPS IN THIS BOOK ARE EVERYTHING. *deep breathing* I need to take a moment to compose myself, otherwise I'll go OTT with my fangirling. The relationships in this book were seriously fantastic. I'm not even talking about the romance! I'm talking about non-romantic relationships. Again, do you know how rare it is to find a book that focuses on relationships that aren't romance based? SUPER RARE. This book focuses on all-girl friendships, all-boy friendships and father/daughter relationships! SQUEEE!” Same, girl. Same. Loved it all!
Moving on a bit here I want to say how appreciative I am of Matson making this book a good romantic book for summer. It didn’t have over the top drama. It didn’t have a love triangle. It didn’t even have love at first sight which was my favorite part. There are way too many tv shows, movies, & books where love at first sight rules all. It’s unrealistic & always makes me roll my eyes. I don’t really believe in love at first sight that much. So I found the romance between Clark & Andie to be fresh & perfect. So realistic. So tender. So extraordinary in a perfectly ordinary way. To quote Blog of a Bookaholic again: “It was real. I also love how it wasn't love at first sight. Yes, Andie thought Clark was cute, but she wasn't all "I'M IN LOVE WITH HIM & THE WEDDING INVITATIONS ARE OUT". They had a few meetings (seeing as Andie had to walk Clark's dog) & then, finally, a date. A date that didn't go all that well!… I loved that they addressed their issues, were able to move past that & got past the surface. I loved the support they had for one another. I loved how Clark was a gentleman. I loved how Andie tried helping him through his writer's block (not in a "love cures any problem ever" way, but as in a "I love you & will do all I can to try to help you" way). The way they fell in love & were able to discuss things was absolutely beautiful. I ship them SO MUCH. I was honestly so invested in their relationship, I felt so much stress when things didn't go well between them (which they sometimes didn't b/c, again, IT WAS REAL).”
It was a long book & I know that was a problem for people & many thought that several 100's of pages could’ve been trimmed out, but I thoroughly disagree. It was all set up & layered so beautifully & so realistically that axing any part of the story would’ve made for less of an impact. It took me about 100 pages to get into the story, but once I was in, I was fully committed & was picking it up constantly. It wasn’t that it had me on the edge of my seat - as has been the case with other books I’ve loved - but more b/c I simply wanted to keep existing in their world by reading & was quite sad that the story was over when I finished.
Once again borrowing from the Blog of a Bookaholic, I share her thoughts on the overall writing: “I loved the writing. Andie's voice shone throughout the novel. All of the voices of the characters resounded throughout the novel in unique, witty & wonderful waves - loved how distinct all the characters voices were. The dialogue was fantastic. Dialogue can often be quite stilted and awkward in books, but the characters' interactions flowed smoothly & read like actual conversations!!!
Book Breakdown —
Characters: I loved them all. They were so well developed and all of them were written so uniquely. I never forgot who a character was or forgot their name or got two characters mixed up.
I loved all of the friends, although towards the end I began to really lose love for one, but more on that later. Palmer was my favorite of the friends b/c of her upbeat, positive attitude. Toby was my 2nd favorite b/c I liked her spunk. Andy would be my third favorite b/c of her character development & growth. Bri was my least favorite due to her terrible friendship skills - but before her bad decisions she was fine - though I did find her to be the least fleshed out of the friends. I loved Clark & how nice he was, & how much he wanted to get to know Andy, along with the fact that he had a really cool career path. Tom was also pretty nice as a character but wasn’t in the book enough for me to love him (although the bromance between Clark & Tom was adorable)! Wyatt was my least favorite. Andy’s dad was also the best and I really enjoyed seeing their relationship develop.
Pacing/ length: this was an incredibly long book, however I really enjoyed all of it. It did take me about 100 pages to really get into the groove of the story, but even then everything was tied together so well & flowed perfectly. It made for a really well written story with deep emotions and well thought out relationships & plots. The length added layers to the story & ultimately made it more impactful.
Cover design: I absolutely adored the cover so much. I mean, who doesn’t want to see a bunch of dogs in front of an ice cream truck on the front of their book cover? Plus, once you take the dust jacket off, there is a really nice photograph on the inside of the dust cover of Andy & the adorable main dog of the book, Bertie. To top it all off, the hardback itself is yellow & white which makes it stand out from its counterparts. I loved all of that.
Plot: I don’t read too many contemporary novels so I don’t have much to compare it to, however I loved every second of this book. I loved the plot. I wasn’t on the edge of my seat like I am when I read fantasy, but I didn’t want to put the book down b/c it was just too interesting. I simply wanted to keep reading so I could be a part of their world. I think the author did a wonderful job of building the world & developing the characters & mapping out a very detailed plot.
Reading Medium: hardback, ebook, & some audiobook. Mostly ebook & hard back.
Summary—
Andie Walker has her summer all mapped out. She’s headed to pre-pre Med Summer Camp at a prestigious college campus. However, that all changes when her father endures a political scandal & her internship is ripped away from her within days of leaving. Now, with nothing left to do for the summer, & her estranged father being home with her all summer for the first time in a long time, Andie is at a loss.
Luckily Andie has a squad of best friends to help her figure it all out: Palmer, Toby, & Bri. Her girlfriends all have paths they are following for the summer though. Palmer is working in a play, Toby is working at an art museum, & Bri is working at the movie theater. Plus all of the ladies have their hearts set on boyfriends & crushes. Palmers going steady with her boyfriend Tom. Toby’s crushing on Wyatt hardcore, & Bri is quiet about her love life.
Given all of her friends have internships & jobs lined up for the summer, Andy realizes she has to as well in order to stay on track for college which leads her to an unconventional job of walking dogs for which she has no experience. Andy learns quickly though & actually begins to really enjoy it.
To amplify her summer fun she wants to have a relationship. Lucky for her she begins walking Bertie who is being watched by a handsome & awkward young man, named Clark. As the summer rolls on, she walks dogs, begins a relationship with Clark - the famous author - repairs her strained relationship with her father, & begins to truly live in the moment. But as the summer comes to a close, things start to blow up in her face: her dad is cleared of all wrongdoing & starts to return to his normal political life, reminding Andy of how his political career strained their relationship. Her boyfriend Clark, who she is head over heels in love with, is moving back to Colorado. Finally, her best friends all become mad at each other & are torn apart when it’s discovered that Bri has been secretly dating & sleeping with Toby’s crush, Wyatt, all summer. Andie finds out a day before the other girls & convinces Bri to keep it a secret in a feeble attempt to keep the friendship from imploding. When the lies are discovered among the friends & Andies fear of Clarke moving away & the fear of her dad returning to DC mounts, Andie begins to regress into the person she was before she met Clarke; she stuffs her real feelings down, lies, & tries to maintain the appearance of a perfect life on the outside while being miserable on the inside. After a lot of emotional moments later, she realizes she’s wrong to regress, & she sets out to correct her regression; she saves her dad from public humiliation before he quits his political career, attempts to salvage her friendships, & professes her love for Clarke in front of a room of onlookers. Though things will likely never be the same with her group of friends, Andy learns to accept the change. She continues to be close with her dad & dates Clarke who transfers to a school closer to Andy. She also refocuses her career & college path when she realizes she actually wants to be a veterinarian b/c she has such a lovely time walking dogs. Above all, Andy learns to be her best self as she grows & moves on with life.
Detailed Review—
I read a review by “Blog of a Bookaholic” & she completely captured how I felt about this book so I’m going to quote her review a ton in my review b/c she sums it up so well! Go check her review out here!
“This book is gorgeous. It's funny & heartwarming & bittersweet & real. It's summer sunsets, beach trips, romance, friendship & family. It's about forgiveness & growth, honesty & wearing your heart on your sleeve. It captures perfectly the exhilarating beauty of a summer filled with dazzling possibility & discovery.” (Blog of a Bookaholic Review).
I loved the characters of this book so flipping much. I loved all the friends & the love interests & the father. But right now I’m going to focus on Andie. She was great b/c she was so realistic. She wasn’t super special or chosen to save the world, but she wasn’t a Mary Sue either. She was a perfect balance. She didn’t command armies or lead a revolution. She was just a normal teenage girl who was growing up & making mistakes and learning.
Over everything though, I LOVED how Andie & the other characters were mature. It’s so hard to find characters in YA that are mature & realistic but Andie was, as were most of her counterparts. As Blog of a Bookaholic stated: “FINALLY. A YA BOOK WHERE THE CHARACTERS ACTUALLY ACT THEIR AGE. A lot of YA books feature characters that are either a 40 year old in a 17-year-old's body, or a 12-year-old in a 17-year-old's body. There's generally no in between. However, Morgan Matson wrote characters that were mature & responsible (for the most part), which I loved… I'm so glad to see teenagers that aren't stupidly ignorant/irresponsible getting represented! THANK YOU, MATSON.” It made such a difference reading from a realistically mature characters POV. Let’s write more of that please.
Speaking of Andie, her character development was perfect. It ebbed & flowed so organically. I’m so used to reading books where the protagonist finally learns his/her lesson at the end of the book & finally makes changes to his/her life in the last several chapters of the book, but Andie learned about herself early on and continually worked on her development throughout. Plus, she did regress a bit which is natural but then she corrected course once again. It was so authentic & I LOVED it.
Now, let’s talk about Clark. He was a sweetie & I loved how Matson portrayed him. In a lot of YA, specifically contemporary, young men are portrayed poorly. They are over simplified often & made out to be playboys or jerks or over the top sweet & unrealistic. But with Matson’s novel there was none of that. Clark was sweet & kind, but still got frustrated & made it known when he needed to. He was shy & awkward, but kind & attentive. He also was a best selling author of 2 fantasy novels which features heavily in the story & is so cool. More than these details though, I adored how Matson molded Clark. He wanted more with Andie than a superficial fling. He didn’t want casual talk, but genuinely wanted to get to know her & in turn forced her to change for the better if she wanted to keep him in her life. He was well rounded, well thought out, & complex which was refreshing for a YA love interest.
I also appreciated the bromance between Tom (Palmer's boyfriend) & Clark. It was so wholesome & real! I liked how the young ladies didn’t distance themselves when they got boyfriends but instead the boyfriends hung out with one another. They all grew with each other instead of away from another. It was refreshing for real life & fiction. Loved it so much!
Andie's friends were another beautiful point of interest in this book. Her friends (Palmer, Bri, & Toby) were so unique & amazing. I usually have trouble remembering friends’ names in books b/c they all blend together to me, but these young women did not. They were unique & each had their own flare & voice which made them memorable. I never got them confused with one another or forgot who was who. Plus, they were a realistic friend group. They fought & grew and learned together. They weren’t inseparable to an unhealthy degree either. They were just good friends who worked together to grow, learn, & live. It was amazing & I wanted to be friends with them in real life.
I do want to stop here really quick & put in a GIANT SPOILER ALERT b/c I want to mention how even though I enjoyed the friendship dynamics, I did not like Bri by the end of the book. She went behind Toby's back, & not only dated Wyatt, but also slept with him. That’s a huge no-no for me. And then she had the audacity to play the victim in the situation? That was so wrong & she was my least favorite of the friends even before that incident, simply b/c she was the least fleshed out of all of the friends. Regardless, I think her decision to go behind her best friend’s back & be with Wyatt was handled so poorly on her part; this has nothing to do with character development or plot or writing style. All of that was perfect. This part of the plot was just so darn good it had me freaking out b/c I loved it all so much. It was beautifully developed in the story, & it makes me love the book that much more, but I couldn’t go the whole review without mentioning it, b/c I had VERY strong feelings about it when I read it.
Ok moving on… Again I will refer to Blog of a Bookaholic to explain how I feel about Andie’s dad. “Andie's Dad was such a good guy. His development was incredible. He went from being a distant father that had been overcome by grief, who completely involved himself in his career after his wife's death to an involved, loving father. I thought his realization & journey to becoming who he was at the end of the book was, again, written brilliantly.” The part where Andie & her father got into a huge fight & hashed long kept raw emotions out was so intense & actually made me tear up, which I have NEVER done with a book before. It was so incredibly realistic how they’re conversation moved & how their relationship developed. Seriously, I loved their relationship so much. Seeing it build up & hold strong steady was so fulfilling & rewarding. Especially as a YA reader, where parents are often an after thought. Can’t stress enough how much I loved the family dynamics in this masterpiece of a novel!
Quoting Blog of a Bookaholic again:
“Let's talk about the friendship between Andie, Bri, Toby & Palmer. In this book, we have a positive all-female friendship group. They supported one another, loved one another & cared for one another. There was no fake friendship between the four girls which was SO NICE to see. They were all so different, yet their dynamics were brilliant. I also LOVED the added layer of authenticity & realism that accompanied The Unexpected Everything due to their group texts. YES, YOU READ THAT CORRECT - The Unexpected Everything contained snippets of messages between the characters! I LOVE IT WHEN BOOKS DO THIS. It was even complete with emojis! MY MILLENIAL HEART IS HAPPY. Another thing I commend Morgan Matson for is that the characters typed like actual teenagers. There was none of "c u l8ter". It was full sentences, which is how teenagers actually message.” When I read this I freaked out. Blog of a Bookaholic actually put into words what I couldn’t. Matson managed to make the teenagers realistic & it made for a truly wonderful reading experience. Bravo Matson, bravo!
To summarize the relationships in this book I will reference Blog of a Bookaholic again: “THE RELATIONSHIPS IN THIS BOOK ARE EVERYTHING. *deep breathing* I need to take a moment to compose myself, otherwise I'll go OTT with my fangirling. The relationships in this book were seriously fantastic. I'm not even talking about the romance! I'm talking about non-romantic relationships. Again, do you know how rare it is to find a book that focuses on relationships that aren't romance based? SUPER RARE. This book focuses on all-girl friendships, all-boy friendships and father/daughter relationships! SQUEEE!” Same, girl. Same. Loved it all!
Moving on a bit here I want to say how appreciative I am of Matson making this book a good romantic book for summer. It didn’t have over the top drama. It didn’t have a love triangle. It didn’t even have love at first sight which was my favorite part. There are way too many tv shows, movies, & books where love at first sight rules all. It’s unrealistic & always makes me roll my eyes. I don’t really believe in love at first sight that much. So I found the romance between Clark & Andie to be fresh & perfect. So realistic. So tender. So extraordinary in a perfectly ordinary way. To quote Blog of a Bookaholic again: “It was real. I also love how it wasn't love at first sight. Yes, Andie thought Clark was cute, but she wasn't all "I'M IN LOVE WITH HIM & THE WEDDING INVITATIONS ARE OUT". They had a few meetings (seeing as Andie had to walk Clark's dog) & then, finally, a date. A date that didn't go all that well!… I loved that they addressed their issues, were able to move past that & got past the surface. I loved the support they had for one another. I loved how Clark was a gentleman. I loved how Andie tried helping him through his writer's block (not in a "love cures any problem ever" way, but as in a "I love you & will do all I can to try to help you" way). The way they fell in love & were able to discuss things was absolutely beautiful. I ship them SO MUCH. I was honestly so invested in their relationship, I felt so much stress when things didn't go well between them (which they sometimes didn't b/c, again, IT WAS REAL).”
It was a long book & I know that was a problem for people & many thought that several 100's of pages could’ve been trimmed out, but I thoroughly disagree. It was all set up & layered so beautifully & so realistically that axing any part of the story would’ve made for less of an impact. It took me about 100 pages to get into the story, but once I was in, I was fully committed & was picking it up constantly. It wasn’t that it had me on the edge of my seat - as has been the case with other books I’ve loved - but more b/c I simply wanted to keep existing in their world by reading & was quite sad that the story was over when I finished.
Once again borrowing from the Blog of a Bookaholic, I share her thoughts on the overall writing: “I loved the writing. Andie's voice shone throughout the novel. All of the voices of the characters resounded throughout the novel in unique, witty & wonderful waves - loved how distinct all the characters voices were. The dialogue was fantastic. Dialogue can often be quite stilted and awkward in books, but the characters' interactions flowed smoothly & read like actual conversations!!!