Synopsis from Amazon:
Who knows you well? Your best friend? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? A stranger you meet on a crazy night? No one, really?
Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their paths outside of class have never crossed.
That is until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar. Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way.
When Kate and Mark meet up, little do they know how important they will become to each other — and how, in a very short time, they will know each other better than any of the people who are supposed to know them more.
*I received a free digital advanced reader’s copy of this book from St. Martin’s Griffin via NetGalley. This did not influence my review of this book in anyway. This is an honest review of the novel as I saw it. This novel will be released on June 7, 2016.*
I wanted this book to be like Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares (which I loved) and not like Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List (which I didn’t finish). This book fell somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. I really liked Mark. I thought he was sweet, witty, and kind of dorky and I totally related to his relationship/friendship with Ryan. I also liked Kate. I understood her anxiety and her fear and I found that 100 percent relatable. I hated her friend, Lehna, though. She was so irritating and I kind of skimmed her dialogue and I agreed with Kate in that I didn’t understand why they were friends.
Truthfully my biggest issue with this book was how it was written. That’s not to say that the writing itself was bad. It wasn’t. It was really good actually and I feel like I learned a lot about the LGBTQ community and some of their struggles that I myself as a cisgender straight woman could never understand. What I didn’t like was that the chapters didn’t say if it was Matt or Katie’s point of view. For the most part they just switch back and forth except there are two chapters of Matt back to back at one point and that threw me off for a second before I caught on. I found that irritating and I just think it makes sense to identify the narrator when you have a book that alternates POV.
Also, based on the synopsis I was under the impression that this book would take place in the span of one night but it didn’t. It took place in the span of about a week, which is fine but it just threw me off. I also wish that we got to be a part of the fun party that Katie and Mark go to. We get details about all that really happened later but they just completely skipped it in the present, jumping to the next day, and that really bothered me. I wanted to know what happened. Like I said we get details later but I just didn’t see the point in skipping it and then coming back to it later.
Lastly, I had trouble believing Katie and Mark’s insta-friendship. I just didn’t buy it and it seemed kind of strange to me. Maybe this is just because I’ve never experienced this but they’re immediate friendship didn’t seem genuine or organic to me at all.
Honestly, I just didn’t love this book as much as I would’ve liked to. There were definitely some moments that made me laugh and the poetry slam made me cry, but the book as a whole just didn’t really do it for me. This one has to be a borrow for me.
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