99 Days (99 Days Series, #1)

by Katie Cotugno

"Molly Barlow is facing one long, hot summer--99 days--with the boy whose heart she broke and the boy she broke it for: his brother"-- Amazon.com.

Molly Barlow is facing one long, hot summer with the boy whose heart she broke and the boy she broke it for--his brother. The plot contains pervasive profanity and sexual situations.

• ISBN10: 0062216392
• ISBN13: 9780062216397
• Publish Date: 30 April 2019 (first published 21 April 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[girlinthepages]

So I'm getting more and more into audio books this summer thanks to Scribd, and when I saw 99 Days I thought I'd give it (another) shot. I had originally tried a trail of Scribd like two years ago but quickly quit because they had moved to a points system I disliked, and never got a chance to try more than on chapter of 99 Days. I had remembered the book causing quite a bit of controversy based on the content, so I decided it was exactly the type of drama I needed to accompany me through my boring commute. What I didn't expect, however, was to end up liking the story as much as I did.

99 Days features one of the most overused YA tropes, a love triangle. However, given that the book takes place AFTER the drama went down (a year after to be exact), it's more focused on the aftermath, and on protagonist Molly's return to Star Hollow, a town where everyone knows what she did, and everyone is intent on punishing her, rather than the two guys involved. The book tackles issues of bullying, girl on girl hate, and, most importantly, slut shaming. Molly is the victim of some pretty severe actions (keying her car, egging her house, etc) and it's fascinating yet repulsive to see how she, as the female in the situation, bears the brunt of the shame and scandal. Cotungo does a good job of realistically portraying how Molly becomes the scapegoat and the mob mentality that allows the boys to get off relatively free despite their involvement in their shenanigans, and it's rather horrifying to see how society reacts this way and puts into perspective a LOT about how females are treated, especially in high school when it comes to dating and their associated reputations.

Now, despite the feminist tone of the novel, that did not keep the protagonist Molly from making some very poor decisions that often times hurt other people and/or worsened her situation. And yet...I still found myself liking her. It's so rare that you see female protagonists who get to be imperfect and still have other positive traits (being hardworking, intelligent, funny, etc), and Molly's all of these things despite her rather inconsiderate choices when it comes to boys. I liked that 99 Days turns so many of the stereotypes surrounding girls embroiled in relationship drama on its head, and managed to make a story about a love triangle not JUST about a love triangle- I feel like I still got to know Molly and her personality outside of a romantic context as well.

99 Days also put a unique spin on family system representation, with Molly being the adopted daughter of a single mother. I feel like I don't read too many books about adopted protagonists (though if you're interested, I HIGHLY recommend Far From the Tree by Robin Benway, it's fantastic) so it was a unique element in the story. Molly's relationship with her mother is also rather interesting, as her mother serves as a catalyst for much of the drama that goes down, as she took Molly's private experiences to use them as the basis for a bestselling novel, which is how the entire town found out about Molly's business. A secondary, yet important, plot element in the book was Molly and her mother navigating and fixing their relationship that her mother's book broke seemingly beyond repair.

Overall: 99 Days isn't a fun read, it isn't a quick read, and it isn't an easy read. It's a story that's not afraid to be messy and flawed and actually TALK about the repercussions and fall out from the protagonist's decisions, whether deserved or not. It's something I wish every teenager had to read because it really makes us examine why we place blame the way we do on females in social situations and forces us to confront some of our own biases as we navigate the story through Molly's (the "antagonist" in many ways) POV. I think this is a story that, whether you like it or not, will make you THINK and has the potential to open up important dialogues.This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages

[jeannamichel]

I liked the message but wasn't incredibly into the story. Review to come.

[Sam@WLABB]

For most of the book, I sort of felt bad for Molly. She made a bad choice, which was revealed by her own mother on a national scale, but I thought Contugno built a good case for why it was not necessarily as bad as it was being made out to be. However, about 75% through the story, I was throwing my own epitaphs her way, as she made more and more bad choices. Then, as the story plays out, I find a little more sympathy for Molly.

I went into this thinking it was a romance, but it isn't. I mean, there are romantic parts, but in the end, I think it was a coming of age story. When all was originally revealed, Molly ran. She left town, and never looked back. Being back in her hometown, she had to face the original issues, and had time to reflect on what and why things happened. She learned a lot about herself, thought about her relationships, and grew as a person.

It was sad, that one night ended many of the most important relationships in her life: with Julia, Patrick, Gabe, and even with her own mother. I was glad some of those relationships were able to be saved. I was not totally rah-rah about the ending, but I did like that Contugno did not shut the door on all the relationships. Even though I could not get behind all Molly's decisions, I had to keep listening to this story. I liked the writing and the characters and found myself invested. Overall, a good read.

It's difficult to like a book when you can't understand the main character's decisions and actions. 

In the beginning, I could empathise with the main character, Molly. She makes a mistake and ends up getting bullied and ostracized by everyone in her small town. Everyone makes mistakes and I felt for Molly after witnessing how much it affects her life. I did not expect Molly to make the exact same mistake over and over again and when things came crashing down around her, I stopped feeling sorry for her. However, I started liking Molly a little more when she started owning her shit. Molly is also a terrible friend. Not only does she go MIA on her best friend, she also ruins what could have been an amazing friendship with Tess, Patrick's girlfriend. 

I hate Patrick. Hypocritical people really annoy me and Patrick is one of the worst hypocrites. He slut-shames Molly after she 'cheats' on him. He then cheats on his girlfriend with Molly and still slut-shames and insults Molly. I can't even deal. 

99 Days deals with a controversial topic, cheating. I try to avoid books that have cheating in it because I don't think that there's anything that can make hurting people and playing with their feelings okay and 99 Days made me want to avoid books with cheating even more. 

I expected 99 Days to deal with slut-shaming and double standards and while there are subtle hints and dialogue about double standards, it isn't explored in depth. All the slut-shaming just ended up making me mad. 

I appreciate that the characters are real, flawed and unlikable, but there are so many elements in 99 Days that just don't work for me

[Joséphine]

Audiobook rating: 2 stars
Book rating: 1.5 stars

Initial thoughts: This book had two redeeming factors. As an audiobook, it was well read and the narrator made me hate the characters a slight bit less. In terms of content, I liked that 99 Days addressed the unfairness of double standards, particularly along the lines of gender. Other than that, I like it so much less than How to Love, which I wan't all that excited about either.

[Bianca]

I didn't know how to let you go.

[bookishzelda]

99 Days is one of those books that you can read through pretty rapidly. I think the character interactions are what makes it so intriguing. It involves some very messy relationships though.

I liked Molly from the get go. It really made me ache for her the way people treated her. There are a bunch of different sayings about stones that could easily apply. I wanted to crawl into the book and yell at those girls for being immature twits and good people make mistakes. That none of this will matter in the long run of life. Then punch them out….well I guess that last part would make me immature. The point being, I really felt for Molly. I think it’s sad she doesn’t stand up for herself because she feels she deserves it and those people are not the ones that should be judging her. It’s really between Patrick and her. Although Molly ends up making some poor decisions at points, I was still rooting for her happy ending.

I loved Gabe. I was really rooting for him and Molly to make it. He was so sweet and seemed to really care about her.

I didn’t like Patrick in the past or present. I could see how him and Molly were more like young puppy love. He was very selfish and it really bothered me. I really wanted him to go find something else to do. I could see how they might have residual feelings towards one another both bad and good. When Molly ran off, they didn’t really get to have the closure they needed.

There are a lot of things in this book I could relate to unfortunately and one of them is the pushing people away and running off. So I get the whole Molly and Imogen dynamic and why she could be mad. I’ve had friends be mad when I tried to find my way back after disappearing on them too. Imogen is a cool girl though and I like how she tells things to Molly straight.

I liked how the book is divided into each chapter being a day. There are 99 days until Molly leaves for college. Which gives the books setting of the entire summer. I enjoyed the plot even though parts of it were hard at times. I think I would get frustrated with all the characters at points. I liked how it portrayed multiple sides the issues though. No one is really innocent but you really get to see how lopsided the blame can be. I liked the way the ending left it, although part of me would like to see what Molly’s up to maybe even a year later. After she has been away at Boston. After everyone kind of gets away.

I really enjoyed 99 Days. This is always a tough topic to tackle and I think Katie Cotugno was able to capture many different angles. I thought it was well written and definitely sucks you in.

[shannonmiz]

Here's my disclaimer: This book, as I am sure many of you have heard, is a bit... shall we say, polarizing. There are topics that may make people uncomfortable, like cheating, love triangles, lies and betrayal. But here is another thing this book is: honest, and quite frankly, realistic.

I don't think I need to announce it, but I will: Molly is flawed. Flawed as hell. But I liked her, somehow. I think it was because she was very aware of her flaws. She wasn't making excuses, or blaming someone else, she acknowledged her mistakes, and wanted to move past them. And I couldn't help but feel sympathetic as the whole town basically pinned a scarlet "A" on her, all while there are zero social ramifications for Gabe.

Let's talk about these boys for a moment. Gabe is the older brother of Patrick, Molly's ex-boyfriend. And he's an ex because, well, while they were briefly separated, she was with his brother. And then didn't tell him when they got back together. So I mean, it wasn't great, but it kind of wasn't the worst thing that anyone's ever done either. Gabe is pretty great, in my opinion. He's charismatic, funny, and really doesn't give a damn about what these people think of him or Molly. He knows how wrong the double standard is, how unfair it is for Molly to take flack but not him. He's a solid guy, and I was so happy when he and Molly started talking again. Then there's Patrick, who I basically could not stand. He seemed very selfish, and entitled, and I couldn't really find his redeeming qualities. I guess for Molly, he was her first love, and they'd been friends forever and all that jazz, but for me? Meh. I wasn't a fan of Patrick.

After everyone found out about Molly and Gabe, and the taunting began, Molly hightailed it to a boarding school in Arizona. So when the book starts, Molly is just coming back to New York after a year away from all these people and their nonsense. You'd think they'd have gotten lives over the past nine months, but no, because half the town is still insistent upon making Molly's life hell. But there are some really decent people in town, people who aren't going to judge Molly based on one indiscretion that is none of their business. Those people are basically awesome. I don't even want to tell you who they are, because it might ruin the fun of finding out.

Of course, that isn't the end of the story, not by a long shot. Molly hasn't quite learned from her mistakes as much as one would hope, and she starts going down a very slippery slope that could kind of ruin all the progress (and new relationships) she's made.

The thing about this story that I loved so much is that yeah, Molly does some really dumb stuff. Even she knows how dumb it is. But she's young, and she is conflicted, and you know, it just made so much sense. I don't condone Molly's actions, but this book was written in such a way that I understood them. I think we all have the ability to mess up, and to do something we later regret, Molly just happened to fall into the opportunity to act on it. And she did the wrong thing, absolutely, but she is human, and we make mistakes. It's what we do about it that eventually defines the kind of person we are. Do we learn from them and try to make better choices? That's all you can really ask of someone, at the end of the day.

The other thing that I really enjoyed about this book was just the sheer readability of it. I couldn't put it down! I don't know what it was about the writing, but I absolutely flew through this book. The characters were all very fleshed out, even some of the more minor ones, and some of them I loved, and some I loved to hate, but I wanted to know their stories all the same. This isn't really a spoiler, but I wanted to say something about the ending, but I hate when people say too much about the ending so I'll use a spoiler tag, just in case:  While we may not all like the outcome, it really is appropriate. I don't think any other ending would have done the story justice.

Bottom Line: I liked this book quite a lot. Yeah, there were moments that I was super frustrated, and wanted to kind of smack some people (it wasn't just Molly, trust me!), I enjoyed the story immensely, and feel like I really got some good messages out of reading it.
This review was originally posted on It Starts at Midnight

[Rowena]

I’ve never read anything by Katie Cotugno before but this book sounded like it’d be a good read and I’ve read nothing but good things about the author online (on Goodreads mostly) so I went into this read pretty excited to read it. Plus, I really liked the cover so I was sucked right in.

This book follows Molly Barlow as she goes home for the summer before college starts (in 99 days). Molly is returning to the home where she’s an outcast. The outcast that cheated on her boyfriend with his brother. Everything wouldn’t have been such a huge deal if her author mother didn’t write about the whole ordeal in her next book that became a bestseller. Her boyfriend Patrick found out about it through the media and all hell broke loose.

Being back in town hasn’t been much fun for Molly. Her car has been egged, people have pointed and laughed at her and just made her life a living hell so she thought it’d be much easier to wait out the 99 days until she can leave home for college by hiding out in her room and watching documentaries on Netflix. The only person that has been remotely nice to her outside of her mother is her ex-boyfriend’s brother, Gabe. The guy she cheated on Patrick with. When she starts hanging out with Gabe again, she thinks that things aren’t that bad. But then Patrick comes back and things go to shit all over again.

99 days shouldn’t have been too long to keep it together, Molly. But holy cow, it was.

Molly’s character drove me bat shit crazy throughout this entire book. In the beginning, seeing the way that she was treated and feeling bad for the way things went down, I thought that Molly would make better decisions. I thought she would have learned her lesson that you can’t go around playing with people’s emotions but being young and dumb and completely real, Molly didn’t learn a damn thing. Watching history repeat itself when Patrick comes back to town made me so freaking mad.

It started off with so much promise too. Molly was remorseful for her actions. She never wanted to hurt anyone but shit happens and you live and learn, right?

Wrong.

In the end, I didn’t hate Molly but there were times while I was reading that I thought that I would. Parts of the book where I was so freaking frustrated that I would actually growl out loud. I adored Gabe and the way that he was with Molly. The way that he was mad that she got stuck with the blame for what went down that night. I loved that he was open and honest with Molly from the very beginning and when Patrick came back into the picture, it was Gabe that I felt bad for. It was Gabe that my heart felt for.

I know that Molly learned her lesson in the end but I didn’t really like how she was trying to make what happened the second time around on the two brothers fighting. I felt like she was trying to pass the buck and I wanted her to be genuinely sorry for her actions because a tiny part of me didn’t think she was. Her actions hurt so many more people than just Gabe and Patrick. She hurt Tess and Julia and Colleen. She wasn’t completely to blame for everything but I felt like she was trying not to accept her part in the whole mess and I wasn’t a real big fan of that.

I will say that this book was a compelling read. As frustrated as I got, I never thought to put it down. I never wanted to DNF the story. I just wanted Molly to wake up and stop being such a dummy. Eventually, she gets there but it took some time and I was glad that I finished it but still, she drove me nuts and in the end, I was still kind of low-key mad at her.