By: Sandy Hall Publication Date: August 26, 2014
Swoon Reads, 272 pages
Source: Bought it from B&N
The creative writing teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in common—they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together. Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work things out. But somehow even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone can see it. Their creative writing teacher pushes them together. The baristas at Starbucks watch their relationship like a TV show. Their bus driver tells his wife about them. The waitress at the diner automatically seats them together. Even the squirrel who lives on the college green believes in their relationship.
Surely Gabe and Lea will figure out that they are meant to be together....
-Description retrieved from Goodreads
As I was ordering some books, I realized most of them were very deep or dystopian-like with some blood and action and I wanted to get something light and would make me happy. So I picked this book up, which sounded like a sweet, light romance novel which it was exactly.
So, let's began by discussing this cover because I adore this cover. It is so cute and when you physically touch it, it feel amazing in your hands because the doodles are etched on instead of simply being drawn on. And I love that light shade of pink, it is absolutely adorable and the swirls are cute. Also, those objects are related to the novel so when you see that take-out box, don't be like 'what the heck?' because you'll see why it is there later on.
This book has fourteen viewpoints and when I read that, I was interested to see how the author would transition because the story is never in the main characters' point of view. But only the point of views of the characters around the main character. Fourteen is a lot and it could be a challenge. Some of the viewpoints, I felt were irrelevant and boring such as the squirrel, I thought that was a bit childish and the bench viewpoint was not necessary in my opinion.
It is character valuation time! Again, I'm picky with my characters so let's start with Gabe, the main guy character, he was alright. Nothing particularly special. One thing I didn't like about the main characters was that they were so shy and were not very confrontational. It got frustrating to see them fumble around each other and they like each other, but they just don't know. It's hard to read it. When I read the description about this book, it pictured something entirely; I thought they were friends who were too shy to tell each other they liked each other. But it takes place in college actually which I did not expect at all. Honestly, I didn't connect with the characters and felt very mediocre towards all of them. Also, I couldn't tell Gabe's friends apart from each other and there were so many secondary characters, it was hard to keep track. I felt like there were an unnecessary amount of secondary characters and many of them could have been cut off and the story could still progress the same. The characters were very one dimension, there wasn't really a real depth in the characters.
I would easily say, this book is very predictable and a bit disappointing. It sounds cutesy in the description, but it was honestly, a very mediocre book and these days, These days, cutesy books aren't enough for me which this book was, maybe if I was younger and read less books, I would have enjoyed it. But to know there are a lot more better books and comparing it to those, really deflates this book. By itself, sure, it's cute and readable, but not exactly the best out there.
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