Kennedy Rhodes turns down an acceptance to an elite private school, instead choosing to stay at her high school and jump at the opportunity to date the boy of her dreams. Three years later, Kennedy walks in on that same boyfriend cheating with her best friend—and wishes she had made a different choice.
Can we just appreciate for a moment before I dive in that I AM BACK!
It’s been a rough year of writing and editing and being on deadline and figuring out where I want to be and then I realized, I want to be right back to where I started. I’ve been writing this blog for five years and its the WORLD to me. I’m so glad to be back and I thought the best way to come back was with a review of the newest book from one of my favorite people on the planet!
GENRE:
Young Adult, Contemporary
PAGES:
464 pages
PART OF A SERIES?:
Standalone
RELEASE DATE:
August 8th, 2o17
YOU CAN FIND THE BOOK AT:
GOODREADS SUMMARY:
Kennedy Rhodes turns down an acceptance to an elite private school, instead choosing to stay at her high school and jump at the opportunity to date the boy of her dreams. Three years later, Kennedy walks in on that same boyfriend cheating with her best friend—and wishes she had made a different choice. But when Kennedy hits her head and wakes up in the version of her life where she chose to attend the private school, she finds that maybe it’s not as perfect of a world as she once thought.
MY REVIEW:
I’m not just saying this: I honestly think Jessica Brody gets better at young adult contemporary with each and every book that she writes, and I thought that she was great from the beginning. This was the first book that I binge read in months and it was fantastic from beginning to end.
We’ve all wondered at some point in our life what it would be like if we had made a different decision. What would have happened if we would have gone to this school instead, if we had bought that car, if we hadn’t dated that person for six and a half years…
Well, Kennedy gets the chance to find and immediately, she’s super into it. This has GOT to be better than what’s going on in her life. She chose her boyfriend – er, well, now ex-boyfriend – over going to the school of her dreams and it blew up in her face when he cheated on her with her best friend. But, of course, not is all that it seems and the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
I think that while it’s a concept that we have seen before, Jessica does an amazing job at making it come alive. She helps us to remember that, despite the ups and downs in our life, they are what got us to where we are now and would we honestly really change that? I know I wouldn’t.
I love Kennedy. I love how freakin smart she is and how adaptable she is. I love her parents and her dorky little brother who reminds me of all of my five siblings rolled into one. I love how insanely dedicated she is to her school newspaper, the one that she took from dying to award winning. I think that Jessica has a way of making characters feel so real and I think that’s a hard thing to do in contemporary fiction. Its easy to make someone real and alive in something fantastic because of the world that’s going on around them but it’s hard to make someone stand out and feel real in the world that is so familiar to us and she’s so so good at that. She makes me laugh, she makes me think and she has me gripping the pages until the end.
While some may argue that ending may be slightly predictable (I disagree), the journey to get to that ending is so fun. Unfolding the life of Other-Kennedy is so fun and its addicting to watch someone get to live out what we have all wanted to do. All the characters are great, unique and lovable and I may have a slight crush on a few of the characters.
This is a LONG book for a contemporary but its worth each and every page. It has everything that I’d want from a novel like this and it left me laughing, like a Brody novel always does. A+ as always!
RATING:
5 out of 5 Stars
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