Review Detail

Despite loving paranormal books about angels, demons, vampires and other supernatural creatures, I have a soft spot for contemporary YA novels. It's much more easy to connect with characters who are based on some realistic foundations. They bring out stories that can happen to any of us, they often highlight many problematic situations teenagers deal with it. As an eighteen year old I can relate to them - I can find a little piece of my past, my personality, my issues, hidden among the pages of those books and that's how I know I'm not the only one in the world with all these problems.

Whitley has created such an enormous self-mechanism through years that she refuses to attach to anyone. Every single day she copes with loneliness and is caught in the crossfire of a battle between her divorced parents. Her father is more like her best friend and she only gets to spend summers with him. Her mother is constantly complaining, her brother moved away and started his own family. Whitley, however, is alone. She refuses to make friends. She refuses to feel. And if you can't feel - don't want to feel - what kind of life are you living then? Are you even living one?

In the beginning of the book I expected to get this funny easy summer book with a bunch of witty conversations and an awesome female lead. Whitley wakes up after the graduation party and finds herself naked beside a complete stranger (good looking at least). And then the guy wants her number and she blows him off - it was a one night stand and it won't happen again after all. Next day her dad comes to pick her up to spend summer with him, but Whitley realizes this will be no ordinary summer. Her father suddenly has a fiancée and a new shiny Stepford family - and she has a new step-brother Nathan. The guy she slept with. Not awkward at all!

Through the story we get to know Whitley more, we start to understand the way her mind works. She parties a lot and she parties hard. Drinking alcohol in order to forget things isn't really working but it's the only escape she has. Dealing with problems this way - drinking and hooking up with random guys - is wrong. She knows that and she starts to pull herself together with Nathan's help and slowly realizes that she simply has to let people in. Otherwise she'll end up broken and alone, while everyone else will be occupied with their own lives.

I enjoyed the story all though it slightly bored me at certain times. When I finished it, I realized that there wasn't much going on - Whitley parties and screws up things, she hides from her problems, has occasional sparks of reason and talks to Nathan, she parties some more. I loved it though how in the end she finally opens her eyes and starts taking action. The writing however was great, I'll be sure to check out other books written by Keplinger. (: