e-Audio, 07:54:50
Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
Release Date: June 1, 2021
Published by: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
Read from: July 14-16, 2021
Stand-alone
Source: Overdrive Audio
TW: Substance Abuse (Not on paper. Only Recovery is shown), Grief
For Readers Interested In: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Romance, YA‘I got this whole-body feeling… it was like a message from future me to present me, telling me that in some way we weren’t just bound to happen, that we had, in some sense, already happened. It felt… inevitable.’
So far, the inevitable hasn’t worked out so well for Aaron Stein.
While his friends have gone to college and moved on with their lives, Aaron’s been left behind in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State, running a failing bookshop with his dad, Ira. What he needs is a lucky break, the good kind of inevitable.
And then he meets Hannah. Incredible Hannah – magical, musical, brave and clever. Could she be the answer? And could they – their relationship, their meeting – possibly be the inevitable Aaron’s been waiting for?
*MY THOUGHTS*
When deciding on whether or not I want to read a book, I usually look at the author and the cover. Most times if I haven’t read the author before, I will read a couple sentences of the synopsis to see what its about. And if I have read them, I will more than likely just add it to my TBR without reading the synopsis at all. I learned just how faulty this system was with this book.
Aaron Stein thinks there’s always something bad coming; that it’s inevitable. And so far, of course it hasn’t worked out well for him or his family. He’s had to stay behind while his friends went off to college, his father is hanging on to a bookstore that’s going to fail, and his mom is gone. He’s now holding out hope for the good kind of inevitable. And then he meets Hannah. Wonderful Hannah who could possibly be the answer to everything. Is she what Aaron has been waiting on this entire time?
Normally I hate when books have synopses that say too much about the book and I end up knowing all the events in the book without having to read it. But this time, I hate that they didn’t put enough in the synopsis. You see, substance abuse is a huge trigger for me. When I was in middle school, I had two family members who did it. All of that was a super dark time and I couldn’t tell you how that traumatized me as a pre-teen. This book has substance abuse in it, with no mention of it in the synopsis. Coming across it while I was listening was pretty jarring. Why is it that was left off? Or at the very least, if not in the synopsis, there should have been a TW/CW page in the beginning. I’m an adult that had trouble with this, so I can only imagine if there is a teen who found substance abuse as a trigger, that got this into their hands. It just kind of scared me.
All of that to say, the story was ok and the plot was just fine, but still, I don’t think I can rate this. Although I was invested in the story, there were a bunch of times where I fast forwarded through it to miss the information about the substance abuse. I have no idea if I went too far and missed things or what. The plot was ok from what I did hear tho. As a fan of Gayle Foreman’s other books, I can’t imagine there were any major things wrong.
As for the ending, I did like that. (From what I remember.) I was glad to see the growth that Aaron went through. It was a hard time getting there, because grief is no easy thing, but Aaron finally got the help he needed. And the cameo was EVERYTHING. It was a surprise and it was so good! I was so excited to see them, I remember reaching out to Twitter to make sure it was them lol IYKYK!
I had some issues with this one, but because I missed some patches, but read it for the most part, I don’t feel right rating this. Normally I would rate it low because of the substance abuse, but what I did read I liked. And I also don’t feel right marking it as a DNF because I read most of it and it’s also a review book. So, I’m leaving the review and leaving the no rating. I’ll let you decide on whether or not you want to read it yourself.
Overall, I give this
NO RATING