Angie
Written on Oct 31, 2013
That was painful to read. Or maybe it's just because I already had a headache, but either way, I struggled to get through Definitely, Maybe in Love. I was beyond excited when Entangled launched their New Adult imprint, so I dove straight into this one. I was even more excited because the main character is an Environmental Science student. I honestly didn't care that it was also a Pride & Prejudice retelling, since all that means is that we know exactly how the story is going to play out. Unfortunately, Spring Honeycutt (a most unfortunate name) completely ruined any potential that this book had from the very first chapter.
In the first two chapters of Definitely, Maybe in Love we learn almost everything we need to know about Spring Honeycutt. She's in her junior year of Environmental Science at Stanford and is working on an undergrad thesis, which is awesome! As someone with a degree in Environmental Science, I was looking forward to reading about someone I could probably relate to! Unfortunately, Spring is one of those self-righteous environmentalists who make the rest of us look bad. On top of that, she clearly states that she's trying to stand out and be noticed by looking the part of an environmentalist. Basically she turned vegetarian and gets her hair braided every two months. Great.
Furthermore, she's even a feminist, since that typically goes hand-in-hand with being a "tree hugger." Except that her definition of being a feminist is to not listen to ANY music performed by male artists. Say what?! Spring is one of the most close minded people I have ever encountered. She claims to live by "live and let live" but she doesn't...at all! Pretty much anyone involved in finance, business, land development or related fields are evil idiots and don't know anything about the environment. I would suggest she take Urban Ecology and Environmental Economics to see just how far off point she is!
In fact, the catalyst to getting Spring and Henry (her Mr. Darcy) together is that her adviser tells her that her thesis is missing an understanding of the opposing side, so to go get help from a economics student. She grudgingly does so in order to get a good grade, but does she actually learn anything by the end of Definitely, Maybe in Love? I don't think so. She dates said economics student (actually he's a land development law student, but whatever) and takes out her precious braids, but that's it. Oh, and she says "frack" instead of "fuck" which is beyond irritating, and no one in the book seems even fazed by it.
I could actually go on and on about Spring being a fake environmentalist, but I'll move on to some of the other things that bothered me in Definitely, Maybe in Love. Braids! Spring's braids are mentioned constantly! Like having braids is suppose to mean something. I wore braids all the time when I was in elementary school, and even now sometimes my mom braids my hair so I don't have to deal with it for a little while. Braids are not some environmentalist staple, and yet there's way too much focus on Spring's hair! Why is that?! And the entire book felt like a Diet Coke advertisement. It's all anyone ever drinks and it's always mentioned by name. Why not just have a character grab a "soda"? Does it always have to be Diet Coke?!
The time line of Definitely, Maybe in Love also threw me off at times. Well, maybe not the time line specifically, but the transitions between scenes. It jumps around a lot, since these 260 pages cover an entire year, but many times it's not clear how time is passing. One page it's Thanksgiving, then suddenly they're getting read to leave for Winter break, but on the very next page they're already back from break. Then the next chapter it's suddenly Spring Break. Where is the time going!? A few times, it seemed like the very next day or at least close, but then Spring would say something about several weeks passing. It was all very jumpy.
Maybe I was too close to the subject matter to just sit back and enjoy it, but Definitely, Maybe in Love was one of my biggest disappoints of the year. Spring is a horrible protagonist and I never felt like cheering for her to get her man. I liked Henry. He seemed genuinely nice, but we really only see him through Spring's eyes, which puts him down as a spoiled rich boy who must hate the environment since his family owns lots of land. By the end, we see that's not true at all, but Spring never gave him a chance to show that earlier. Plus, the entire book is just boring. Perhaps I'm just use to NA being really dramatic, but nothing happens. It's all about Spring, and I hated her.
Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.