26 May 2015

Review #227: The Night We Said Yes by Lauren Gibaldi



My rating: 2 of 5 stars


“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”

---- Anaïs Nin, French-born novelist, passionate eroticist and short story writer



Lauren Gibaldi, an American author, pens her debut YA novel, The Night We Said Yes, which traces the life story of few high school teenagers making history and adventures in a night and is centered around the concept of undying friendships, first love, possibilities, making decisions and being brave and moving on.





Synopsis:

Before Matt, Ella had a plan. Get over a no-good ex-boyfriend. Graduate from high school without any more distractions. Move away from Orlando, Florida, where she’s lived her entire life.

But Matt—the cute, shy, bespectacled bass player who just moved to town—was never part of that plan.

And neither was attending a party that was crashed by the cops just minutes after they arrived. Or spending an entire night saying “yes” to every crazy, fun thing they could think of.

Then Matt abruptly left town, and he broke not only Ella’s heart but those of their best friends, too. So when he shows up a year later with a plan of his own—to relive the night that brought them together—Ella isn’t sure whether Matt’s worth a second chance. Or if re-creating the past can help them create a different future.


The whole book is narrated in a 'Then' and 'Now' format, in the begining it sounded pretty cool, but when same events started happening in the past and present chapters, it simply bored me to death. This book was a mistake for me, since I'm very choosy when it comes to YA. But over-dramatic YA stories are not my thing, even though, I'm a huge fan of contemporary romance. Right from the very begining, the story started revolving around the certainty and uncertainty of the relationships featured in the book, which I believe has no momentum and gravity for the readers to keep on moving forward with the story.

Ella is left heartbroken by a newbie, geeky-yet-charming-bassist, Matt. The night when they meet, they make a lot of histories and adventures (which is not that interesting) and instead of giving pace to Matt and Ella's instant closeness, the author throws Matt out of the picture from Ella's life. The reason is still very unclear to me. One year passes by, Matt is back again with a plan before Ella leaves for college and move on with her life. And predictably, Ella falls back into the same pattern. Oh and not to forget, Ella's friends, Mae and Jack are in the same type of on-and-off relationship drama, which is way too much to handle.

I thought in this book there will be something substantial to hold on to, but unfortunately the book is composed of very bad relationship drama. Moreover, there was no way, I felt connected to Ella or any of her friends. Ella's actions have no justification or whatsoever. Not only Ella, Meg, Jake and Matt, there actions seems to have no solid or proper explanations so as to why.

Yes, I agree with the idea of featuring flawed characters, but melo-dramatic and tugging on the same string type of characters simply mar the charm of the storyline. Ella is born to be insecure about Meg, Jake is born to be a dickhead, Meg is born to be dominating and Matt is born to be yet another jerk who first breaks up with Ella after their one night introduction, then again comes back for no reason and re-creates the same kind of night when they first met.

The story is not even close to reality, I mean how many people makes their whole universe to be surrounded by the guy that they met and got to know in just one night? Ella is totally dependent in that whatever-relationship with Matt, and it is evident from her demeanor when Matt comes back for the second time.

The writing is easy and fine, but unfortunately the storyline is terrible bland and makes no sense. But if you believe in that insta-love, insta-make-out concepts, then this book perfectly fits your bill.

Verdict: I respect every book, so I'll probably give it two stars just for the writing style and the pacing.

Courtesy: ARC received from the publisher.
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Author Info:
Public librarian and author of THE NIGHT WE SAID YES (HarperCollins / HarperTeen, June 16, 2015) and MATT'S STORY (a The Night We Said Yes Novella, out August 2015). Fan of dinosaurs and cheesy jokes. And you.
Visit her here 


Book Purchase Links:

2 comments:

  1. It's a shame the whole then and now affect didn't really work out for you at all :( I did want to try this one originally but I think a style like that one would annoy me as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yeah, I thought it'll be a great book! :-( Thanks for stopping by, Olivia! :-)

    ReplyDelete

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