Me, Him, Them, and It

by Caela Carter

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

Me, Him, Them, and It was one of my most anticipated 2013 releases, but unfortunately I didn’t like it. Evelyn has been trying on a new bad girl image to upset her parents, but it’s a big failure since they don’t even pay attention to her. Then she gets pregnant, and instead of rubbing their faces in it, she decides not to tell them. If her goal is to get their attention, wouldn’t that just go against it? Of course, the truth has to come out and it’s one big mess.

There’s no other way to put this, so I’ll just say it. Evelyn is a bitch. She really is, and I didn’t like her. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t interested in what she had to say, because I was. I just wanted to slap her several times. However, I was proud when she stood up to Todd when they were “discussing” her decision. She’s just not a person I would want to hang around, but she does make for interesting reading, since she makes such horribly stupid decisions. I did think that things would get better once she arrived at her Aunt Linda’s house, and I was right…kind of…okay, not really.

Evelyn becomes less bitchy, but she’s still annoying, definitely more so. I can’t believe that she acts like pregnancy is some new thing, and has no idea that decisions need to be made even if she doesn’t know what to choose at the moment. She acts so surprised when people ask her obvious, common sense questions. I understand that having a baby is a huge life change, especially at sixteen, but she really behaves like she’s never heard of pregnancy before. Her mind seems to be preoccupied with her boobs, since she never had any until now. In fact, she spends most of the book complaining about how she’s too skinny and too pale and her hair is too red and frizzy. There are more important things!

AND…yes there’s more…And at about two-thirds in, she starts complaining about how she has no one to talk to about her feelings or to help her make decisions, despite everyone asking her to sit down and chat with them or letting her know they’re available to talk. Then the very next time someone tries to talk to her she just shrugs. She shrugs A LOT, even when she’s on the phone. The person on the other line can’t see you shrug, USE YOUR WORDS! If she wants to talk, why is she shrugging everyone off, literally?! It’s extrememly frustrating.

I also had a hard time with the story once she moves in with her aunt and cousins. I was expecting a warm, accepting environment where Evelyn could get her life together. However, Aunt Linda’s wife, Nora, puts in place a bunch of rules, which is fine, except for #8 which says Evelyn can’t interact with her cousins. Then Nora has the nerve to say she feels sad that Evelyn seems detached from the family. Um, what?! You are doing that! Then there’s the whole fact that her mother is paying them $4,000 a month to take her in. Most people don’t even earn that much money in a month! No wonder Evelyn is having a rough time! She has no real emotional support (not that she would accept it anyway)!

I was enjoying Me, Him, Them, and It at the beginning, despite my dislike for Evelyn, but things really started to fall apart at around the midpoint. The story just became unbelievable with the characters behaving in stupid manners. Sure Evelyn makes the dumbest decision of all by agreeing to have unprotected sex (multiple times), but having her parents send her away to two women who know nothing about what she’s going through, one of which is concerned about Evelyn not feeling like part of the family when she’s the one preventing it, and the other who is suppose to be her support system isn’t even home, was much more frustrating.

I just can’t believe how mad this book made me. Nothing that anybody did made any sense at all. The ending especially. You know all of those decisions that Evelyn didn’t know she needed to make? Well she makes a decision….to not make any decisions! She pushes it all off to her aunt, but then decides to make a decision, and everyone who was pressuring her to make a decision decides that she’s too young to make any decisions! I felt like I was taking crazy pills! I was originally going to give this one 2 stars, because I liked it in the beginning and I applaud the author for taking on this tough subject. But after thinking on it for a week, I just can’t give it another star. The characters are just too horrible and lacking in any kind of sense which really brought down the entire book.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.