Thursday, July 3, 2014

Meant To Be by Lauren Morrill

Genre:young adult, romance, contemporary

Published:January,7th 2014 (paperback)

Pages:304

Publisher:Ember



               Synopsis
 
 
It's one thing to fall head over heels into a puddled of hazelnut coffee, and quite another to fall for the-gasp- wrong guy. Straight-A student Julia may be accident-prone, but she's the queen of following the rules and being prepared. That's why she keeps a pencil sharpener in her purse and a pocket Shakespeare in her... well, pocket. Julia also believes in fate, and that Mark, her childhood crush, is her MTB-her meant to be.              
     But this spring break, Julia's rules are about to be defenestrated(SAT word: thrown from a window) when she's partnered with her personal nemesis, class clown Jason , on a school trip to London. After one wild party, Julia starts receiving romantic texts... from an unknown number! Jason promises to help discover the identity of her mysterious new suitor if she agrees to live a little along the way. And thus begins a wild-goose chase through London, leading Julia closer and closer to the biggest surprise of all: true love.
     Because sometimes the things you least expect are the most meant to be.
 
 
 
Thoughts
 
So, when I picked up this book from the bookstore, I was quite happy because of the fact that I have been wanting to read it for quite some time, and I was very much drawn to the plot, and how different it was from just another typical romantic-contemporary.
 
From what I understood of this story, was that Julia was a good girl who never broke the rules and was always prepared. Then she is partnered with her nemesis Jason, on a class trip to London on spring break. Then after a party that she goes to, she starts breaking all the rules. Then (for me) it just goes downhill from there.
 
The thing was, was that I really wanted to enjoy this story, and I tried so hard to love it. But for some reason, I just couldn't. I did however think that this was a very entertaining read. I also liked how there was balance between happy and sad, throughout the novel. I actually really loved reading about the different places that everyone went to while in London, like the Globe Theater, Shakespeare's birthplace etc..

Julia was a part of the novel that I did not enjoy so much. Julia was okay, but she wasn't the greatest character to read about. I found her to be really stuck up and annoying, and she seemed to be that type of person where she just had to know everything about anything and in real life(remember that this is a fictional story), THAT IS NOT OKAY! She was constantly living in her own fantasy world, and was always looking down upon people all the time, (which luckily, Jason literally calls her out on both of those things). Into which I had a really hard time connecting and relating to Julia as a character, which sort of made me not love this book 100%.  

Jason, was very funny, entertaining, and super crazy. He was a great character, and I really liked him a lot, in comparison to Julia. Jason was actually the reason why I kept reading, because he was so full of life, and energy. I wouldn't say he was witty necessarily, but just that he was very good with his words. His look was also different than any other male character in the young adult genre, with his red hair (I'm not sure on his eye colour, and anything else about his looks for that matter), but it was very refreshing to read about. It would have been interesting to read the book through Jason's eyes, just to see his way of thinking be different compared to Julia's in the novel. 

I loved them when they were together, I found it to be really funny when Jason and Julia just start hating on each other, with Jason constantly calling her 'Book Licker', and her absolutely despising it. I liked how these two characters were portrayed as complete opposites of one another. In general, I really like reading books about the main character hating the love interest, and seeing how it all goes down from there.

 Overall this book was not a favourite of mine, but I do like it enough to give it a good recommendation. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it completely.


  Rating
 
3.5/5




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