e-Audio, 09:38:42
Narrated by: Joy Osmanski
Release Date: March 30, 2021
Published by: HarperTeen
Read from: June 17-19, 2021
Stand-alone
Source: Overdrive Audio
TW: Cheating
For Readers Interested In: Contemporary, Romance, Realistic Fiction, Stand-alone, Teachy not Preachy, YAAda’s life is a mess. She just caught her boyfriend cheating on her after a humiliating attempt at losing her virginity, and she’s had it up to here with her gorgeous older sister’s unsolicited advice.
But things really hit the fan during a family vacation in Hawaii, where Ada discovers her own mother is having an affair. Apparently, everyone is falling into bed with people they shouldn’t. Everyone except Ada. But when Ada decides she’s going to stop trying and start doing—sex, that is—her best laid plan overlooks an inconvenient truth:
Feelings, romantic or not, always get in the way.
*MY THOUGHTS*
When I see a book written by Cynthia Hand coming out, I waste no time in adding it to my TBR. This one was no different. Well in that way at least. In other ways it was nothing like the other books by Hand. And I can’t say that that was a good thing for me.
Just when Ada thought everything in her life was ok, things begin to unravel. She finds out her boyfriend, who she was contemplating losing her virginity to, cheated on her. Then she has to listen to her perfect sister give her advice about it. She thinks she’s escaping it by going on vacation with her family to Hawaii, when she discovers her boyfriend isn’t the only one that’s been creeping around, her mom has too….
Again, I am usually a huge fan of Cynthia Hand, but this one was just not like her others. Normally I like when its something fresh and new, but not this one. Not it has nothing to do with the subject, it just wasn’t as good as the others. Like this one has no plot. She spends the whole book trying to lose her virginity and being mad at her mom. I just think there wasn’t enough here for a full book? Like I would have loved it if this was like part of a larger plot, but this one just didn’t do it for me. And I wanted more of the setting too! How can you set the book in Hawaii and say it’s paradise, but only mention the beach and a lake where they go paddle-boarding? Why not describe the water, or the foliage, or the hula dancers, etc.? I wanted so much more for it.
Like I said, I would have liked it more if this was part of a bigger plot. But it wasn’t, so the only thing I really liked about it was the fact that it was teachy and not preachy about teens with sex. And the fact that it was advice coming from a “peer” and not a parent, I thought that was great as well. It might make teens who do pick this up a bit more inclined to also take the advice to heart since she is not a parent. And of course, there’s the focus on protection which is another plus. So, I guess if I take it only for what it was (which to me seemed like a pamphlet on sex lol) I thought it was ok.
As for the characters, I did like Ada and the love interest, because what they had, or were trying to make seemed real. I mean come on, making a deal like that would make anyone hella awkward and weird. Her dad was nice too, but with him barely being there, it did make me feel kind of blase about him. Her little sister was the cutest, but her sister….. not so much. But with her sister and her mom, they weren’t great. I really didn’t care for them.
The narrator was pretty basic. I got lost in the story, but I think it was more of Hand’s writing style versus what the narrator sounded like. I’ve listened to others she’s narrated, but none of them I just fell in love with. Because I didn’t love it or hate it, I didn’t take anything off because of the basicness.
This wasn’t my favorite by Cynthia Hand, I’m still happy I gave it a shot. It was different, but that made it a good escape from reading the same thing over and over. I hope that teens read this and at least take the lessons from it.
Overall, I give this
