180 Seconds

by Jessica Park

[Leah]

Jessica Park is one of the finest New Adult writers around – and was probably one of the first to write books in that genre before it was even a genre. I’m a big, big fan of her work and 180 Seconds was a brilliant read. I’ll be honest, I thought it was just this love story about a girl with tons of issues from her past, but it’s so much more than that. It’s also devastating. I was not prepared for where 180 Seconds went, and it honestly felt like this book had pulled out my guts. This is a book where you’ll feel everything, from hope to despair, happiness and sadness and while for a lot of it I wasn’t sure if it was my kind of book, it really did come into itself the more I read and once I got past the halfway mark I was completely taken in.

Growing up in the foster care system is something I have no real world experience on – I’m lucky enough to have two parents who’ve brought me up my whole life, so it took me a while to understand why Allison had so many barriers – and boy, were there a lot. But once you hear a bit how she was shunted from home to home, how it wasn’t until she was 16 that she finally got adopted and that her only real friend was a girl called Steffi, you can understand why she’s hesitant around people. Why she refers to Simon, her adopted father, as Simon and not dad. Why she’d rather spend time in her room, with Simon’s care packages piling up un-opened instead of wondering how she’s supposed to respond. I suppose when you’re that used to taking care of yourself and being rejected, you need to have some kind of wall around you, to keep you safe, to stop you being heart-broken with every new rejection. I am way, way too sensitive for the foster care system, it sounded terrible. I know some people luck out and get fostered right away, with the best family, but for the ones that don’t? I have mad respect for them for keeping themselves right and doing it alone.

It’s hard to warm to Allison at first – because she does have walls, but man, does it make it worth it, when you finally see her opening up. That whole 180 second thing with Esben was like a seal breaking, and I loved their tentative relationship. Esben did all the right things to prove his worth and I liked that Allison gave him the chance to do that, instead of just rejecting him outright and sticking by herself, as she would have had the right to do, let’s be honest. This is very much a novel about learning that there are good people out there, from Steffi, to Esben, to Simon, to Kerry, I loved how they all showed Allison something different and how they all managed to worm their way in, even if Allison didn’t want them to. Esben has my heart, just in case anyone is going to try and get dibs on him. He’s like perfect. *Swoons*

Another brilliant aspect of this book is that Esben is a bit of a social media star – but not in a Kardashian way, in a way that he likes to show the good side of humanity (which is basically what the whole 180 experiment was about) and it’s the kind of thing you see on Facebook – where kids have birthday parties where no one shows up and someone asks for that kid to get sent birthday cards and the response is usually phenomenal. It’s the kind of goodness that brightens your day, which is what we need considering everything going on in the real life world. Death, politics, terrorism, it makes the goodness extra bright, and I love that there are real people like Esben in the world who do this kind of thing and they really need to get more credit.

I loved everything about 180 Seconds. It made me laugh, it made me cheer, it made me sob my heart out, and it showed me that no matter what you go through in life, it’s always worth letting somebody in. It’s always worth lowering your barriers, if you believe in somebody because it can turn into the most amazing thing you’ve ever experienced. Jessica Park is such a brilliant writer, she wrote Allison perfectly and I just devoured this. Once I got into it, that was it. I was gone. I was all in. I loved the characters, the plot, and it was nice to have a good cry. I feel like you have to have a good cry every now and again and this was mine for June, clearly. 180 Seconds was a brilliant read and it nearly tempted me to go and find a hot stranger and force him to stare at me for three minutes and fall hopelessly in love. A girl can dream…