Review Detail

Ah, the YA Contemp genre, always a fickle one for me. I have to be extra careful about what I choose to read and review in this genre because most are misses. I had never read anything by Alsaid before, but after hearing a lot of positive things about his writing and his previous book, Let's Get Lost (of which I have and still need to read), I wanted to give his upcoming book a try. In the end, I was very happy I did. While not captivating nor a page-turner (which is the norm in this genre), Never Always Sometimes still managed to charm me with its quirky characters, entertaining dialogue, and a sense of nostalgia for first loves and senior year of high school.

I really liked Dave and Julia's friendship. They were so comfortable with each other and balanced each other out nicely without bringing feelings into the mix (until later on). I will say that I didn't care for the romance between the two. I much preferred them as friends, they just fit better that way in my opinion. Julia was such a wacky character. I loved the funny ways she said Dave's name and the insane ideas she'd come up with. At times it felt like she was trying too hard to stand out/be ridiculous, but I didn't mind it too much. She has a flighty, wunderlust of a mother and was raised by two dads, so there has to be some personality in the girl. My favorite Julia moment involved a bit of hilarious slam poetry that I seriously need to write down in a quote book because it was just fantastic. Dave is the laidback one who caters to Julia's crazy antics, all while pining for the eccentric girl. I definitely felt bad for him at times and it was different seeing this kind of dynamic as it's usually the other way around.

There are quite a few lulls throughout the book. It kept a steady pace and despite not a lot happening much of the time, it still held my interest, which is good. Let me also just mention that I really liked Gretchen and Brett. Excellent secondary characters.

I'm definitely feeling Alsaid's writing and this is one of the better YA Contemps for me, so yay for that. I loved that Alsaid went in a different direction in the end than what I was expecting. After reading most of the book, I was hoping for that ending, but I didn't know if he would deliver. Thankfully, he did and I appreciated it immensely because I just wasn't rooting for the other option for some reason. Anyways, Never Always Sometimes is one of those quirky books that has plenty of appeal and it delivers in many fronts. I really enjoyed this one and I'm looking forward to checking out some of Alsaid's other works.