nitzan_schwarz
Written on Apr 2, 2016
This series is a really fun contemporary series to pass the time with. The girls and the guys are awesome, their romance is sweet, funny and HOT, and they're such quick reads, perfect for book slumps or times you just need to unwind!
I really love Kaye and Sawyer together, and I kind of wish we got an epilogue showing how all of these characters were doing ten years later. I know high-school couples rarely stay together in real life, but in my head these three couples are still going strong and I need that canonly proven lol
Oh, and can we all just take a minute to slap Kaye's mother? I mean, that woman made me SO mad. I get wanting the best for her daughter after the childhood she has been given, but it's a big stretch from here to there. She disses everything Kaye does, never (at least for most of the book) giving her a good word. She sides with the douchcanoe boyfriend, when she really really shouldn't if she is this strong woman she claims she is. She disrespects and degraded Sawyer because of who his father is and where he came from, when 40 years earlier SHE was the one people called "trash". How can you do that when you rose out of these circumstances? When you know it's possible? When people used to judge you based on where your family lived, your skin color and your financial state? How can you justify it in your brain? This happens in real life often enough, and it pisses me off then, too.
Now, while I generally have really good feeling about this series, there were a few things that bothered me throughout the reads that I want to kind of round-up. I don't really think most of these are spoilers, but on the safe side, I'm putting it all in spoiler tag :)
First of all, why do all these otherwise smart girls seem to think their high-school boyfriends mean future husbands or whatever? I understood Tia's hang-ups, since they were directly tied up to what she has seen her sisters go through, but I do not understand Harper or Kaye.
Harper kept telling herself her boyfriend was her soul mate even as he acted as a total douche, and even as she didn't really like him. But they met in some concert and knew they were right for each other?...
Kaye wasted three years with a guy she doesn't even like all that much just because she has been planning their wedding since she was 14 and that was her plan and it was a good, stable one. Like... girl, for a smart person you are dumb. You don't stay with a guy you can no longer stand (and for completely good reasons, btw!! He's a douche! All you girls' exes who are *not* gay are douches. Seriously) just because it was the plan when you were 14. Why does it take you half the novel to realize how stupid that is???
Second, the break-ups don't make any lick of sense in this series. They seem to happen just 'cause someone told Echols a good romantic contemporary HAS to have that happen at some point, or that's not interesting. Well, instead of adding interest it makes me go "huh?". It doesn't have any impact on the story since they get back together half an episode later, and that's because all the reasons for their breakups are DUMB.
Again, Tia was the only one I understood. Hers was a moment of panic built on years of issues. Harper's was just... so stupid. She is told she wasn't supposed to be voted Perfect Couple That Never Was with Brody and that somehow equals break up in her mind? what bearing does that title have on the fact you HAVE fallen in love and you ARE dating? That made NO SENSE. NO SENSE!
And now Sawyer. Kaye had just told him she loves him. So what if he found a note saying whatever from weeks ago. He knows Kaye. He knows she wouldn't say things like "I love you" for an experiment. But instead, he decides to break up with her. It was so... I don't know... Convoluted (by the way, I still have no idea when or how he got that note. He went down to confront her parents, and then he was angry and walking into the house, at which point he told Kaye he wasn't mad at Aiden but at her because of the note. WHEN DID YOU FIND IT AND WHERE?? Did someone give it to you? Before you met the parents? After? what the fuck happened there??)
And then, ALL of these breakups end the following day. Because even Echols knows you can't milk out such dumb breakups. It just distracted from the stories, which were otherwise lovely.
