Seven Days of You

by Cecilia Vinesse

[Chelsea]

I'm disappointed. After reading the synopsis of Seven Days of You I was expecting a contemporary I'd at least like. I'm generally pretty picky with my contemporary books but this one sounded unique which is why I requested an ARC of it.

My first and biggest problem I had with this book is the setting. Seven Days of You takes place in Tokyo. I was expecting lots of vivid descriptions because how many YA books take place in Japan? I should have kept my expectation A LOT lower because it didn't feel like we were in Japan at all. It could have taken place in New York or London and it wouldn't have made a difference. There was no world building AT ALL and I can't tell you enough how disappointed I feel. This epic setting was chosen for some reason and the author did absolutely nothing with it. A few scenes had some Japanese elements but they felt force, almost like they were just thrown in and landed wherever. If you didn't know anything or not much about Japan you'd be reading certain words and have no idea what they mean. Even some Japanese words were added sporadically without any context and it didn't even serve a purpose except to remind us that we were actually in Japan. You really wouldn't have remember otherwise.

My other issue was with Sophia herself. I found her extremely immature and boring. One moment she was hanging out with her friends having fun like any other teenager and the next moment she was suddenly five. I couldn't keep up with it at all. Even her romance scenes were awkward. I get the concept of it being her first love of sorts but can a teenager really be that immature? (I know they can obviously). In once scene Sophia's friends are basically complaining that she's never kissed anyone and then when she does kiss someone her first thought is "oh my gosh he's probably not a virgin". Umm. What? Can we calm down here please? It also drove me crazy that her nickname was Sofa. Who calls a person a piece of furniture?! It wasn't even once or twice either! She was constantly called Sofa during the entire book.

That was just one character I had a problem with! Mika was probably that worst best friend ever. She was mean and all she ever did was put others down to make everyone feel bad. David was a jerk and I have no idea how he has friends. Plus he was one part of a strange love triangle. Jamie was part two of the love triangle and was probably the most typical YA love interest ever. He had family drama yet was nothing but nice all the time. He could have been any other YA male love interest.

The only redeeming part of this book was that I honestly really enjoyed the first half. There was actually things going on and some decent drama happening. For some reason when I picked it back up again at about 60% it felt like the whole tone changed. I don't know if that was just me but I had a really hard time reading after that point.

This just felt like a very generic YA book hidden behind what sounds like an awesome premise. If you like to read boring contemporary plots (seriously I started skimming at the end) then you might like Seven Days of You. If you're looking for something special and unique then this isn't the book for you.