Don't Ever Change

by M. Beth Bloom

[bookishzelda]

So Don’t Ever Change is one of those books where at first I was like, I don’t know how I feel about this but then ended up reading the majority of it in one sitting. I became absolutely entranced by Eva and the things she was doing.

Eva’s character is fascinating. You might not like her, you don’t have to like her but as she goes through her last summer, she kind of figures out why you might not like her. Eva does not come out the other side of summer as this completely different person, did any of us, she however starts to see how she might come off to other people. Eva is a writer and she doesn’t like to write what she knows because she thinks life is boring around her. So she’s decided to mix things up and try to be different. The thing is being different isn’t always easy, you are the same person just in different settings. I think it makes her really realize things about herself that she might not have if she stayed in her comfort zone.

Are Eva’s friends jerks, I don’t know. I think it’s the summer before college and they are having a normal friendship separation. Eva is that friend that you are aware of the way they are so ambushing them with a new friend and boyfriend at dinner is not necessarily a good tactic. I remember having a friend in high school that told me she thought it was useless to fight with me because I would never care. That’s kind of how Eva is and I’m pretty sure I grew out of it and I think Eva will too.

Eva’s relationship with boys is this whole other complicated thing. She at first is with this guy Elliott and then he goes on tour. She calls him her boyfriend but I don’t think he really is. Then her writing archenemy is working at the same camp she gets a job at. Suddenly she figures out that people are more than just what they can output on paper. Stories are not necessarily possible or impossible. I like Foster though because he is pretty much mellow through it all. It makes me laugh.

Courtney, Eva’s sister, and the rest of her family are kind of interesting group. You can tell Eva gets her constant joke making from her dad and her mom is just trying to deal with empty nesting. I liked how Courtney was Eva’s Yoda in all life situations. They have a really close relationship that is always good to see.

Sometimes I like books because they make me swoon and sometimes I enjoy a book like this because it makes the gears in my brain follow a different track. I read, I absorb and I think about why is Eva so strange. Yet I can’t quit reading about her and then at the end wondering what’s going to happen to her in college.