The Beginning of Everything

Ezra Faulkner had it all. The popularity, the girlfriend, athletic star and probable homecoming king. Until the night of the accident that shattered his knee, causing him to lose everything. Now Ezra finds himself at the outcast table and drawn to new girl Cassidy Thorpe. She’s nothing like anyone he’s ever met but the more time they spend together, the more Ezra wonders how much he really knows her. As someone who believes everyone has a tragedy waiting for them, and who believes he has already experienced his own, Ezra is faced with the question of what it means when more misfortunes happens.

This book had gotten a lot of praise and love before I finally picked it up. I was hoping it would live up to all the hype I’d seen. Sadly, it was just an okay read for me. It felt it was trying a little too hard with some twists to be thought-provoking and shocking but they ended up being neither. I did appreciate the pop culture references through the book, those were fun, and as a whole, I enjoyed the group of misfits Ezra joins.

Ezra was a character I really wanted to like but most of the time, I found myself being annoyed with him. I didn’t find he really went through any real growth as a person, more that he stayed the same while things around him changed and because he went from popular to outcast, from cheerleader girlfriend to manic pixie girlfriend, it looked like he’d changed. I just never found him to be a particularly good person or one that I wanted to be invested in. That was in sharp contrast to Toby, who I did like. He was a good person who deserved to be treated better than how Ezra treated him. A lesser person wouldn’t have given Ezra so many chances but Toby, for some reason, wanted to keep being friends with him.

I think part of the reason I had trouble connecting with the characters was that they and the relationships between them lacked depth. They all fit into little boxes and never really did anything to break out of them. It made their actions and their interactions predictable, all the way down to Cassidy’s big mysterious secret past.

I did like the writing style. It was easy to read, humorous, and I thought it flowed well. The pop culture references were so much fun every time they appeared. The whole plot, I did find predictable, even down to the end.

I think I would have liked this book a lot more if there had been more surprises and more depth to the characters. And possibly if I had read it before all the hype started surrounding it so I didn’t go in with such high expectations. It was a decent book, just not as great as I expected with all the hype.

Since I've been on this deeper contemporary kick for basically the entire summer, I started asking for recommendations for what to read. I got a couple people that told me this doesn't have a deeper meaning, but its still a contemp that I would love because basically everyone that had read it loved it. So I decided to give it a try. In the end, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting but I did enjoy it.
Obviously there were some things that I did enjoy so I'll start there first. I loved the characters. Ezra started out as what seemed like a douche in the beginning, but as the story went on I loved that he found himself.He grew and became such an amazing person. Seriously if he was a real life character, I'd probably have been friends with him. His humor and the way he felt about telling jokes was exactly the way I felt. I have to admit, I connected with him in more ways than one. I also loved Toby. He was also an amazing person. Even after all those years he didn't hold a grudge against Ezra and accepted him back so many times without any question. He was such a great friend.
I also liked the romance. For it to be written in from a male POV I was expecting a lot of crude comments, but Schneider made it obvious that Ezra loved Cassidy. It was a bit insta-lovey in my opinion, but I thought when you're as broken as Ezra was, company is much needed. I also loved that it went against what I normally read and didn't provide the exact Happily Ever After that I had originally been hoping for.
What I didn't like was the plot. It felt like it wasn't going anywhere. Not until the dance night and obviously that was the end. It felt like we were just watching his life day by day to see the few parts between him and Cassidy and that was it. If the book had been mostly like the last 20%, I probably would have loved it a whole lot more.
This book was certainly hyped up, but in my honest opinion, they hyped it up just a little too much. Even still, this coming of age novel is filled with humor and amazing characters. They all had me hooked from the very beginning, even if it was just to see where everyone ended up.
Overall, I give this