Monday, February 23, 2015

How To Unbreakup by Rebekah L. Purdy ~ Review


How To Unbreakup by Rebekah L. Purdy

First rule of breakups: There’s no going back.

For three years, seventeen-year-old Grace Evers has regretted breaking up with Sage Castle.

That day, she lost her boyfriend and best friend. And let's be honest, it's impossible to just be friends with the one person who gets you, faults and all, and loved you anyway. It's impossible not to think about how it felt to be held by him, or the way he looked right before he was about to kiss you with the most perfectly yummy kiss goodnight.

And now that things are over between them, they've become strangers to one another. Sage won’t even look at Grace, let alone talk to her!

Breakup life sucks and Grace is utterly miserable, doing whatever she can to ease the pain of losing Sage. She's spent the better part of high school pretending to be something she’s not and hanging out with people who probably wouldn't notice if she wasn't there. Crappy dates, backstabbing friends, and Sage's cold shoulder have taken their toll.

So when her parents propose going away to their house on Lake Michigan for the summer, Grace is thrilled. No more massively bad dates with horrible kissers or lunch with frienemies. Just three months of swimming,
hiking, and relaxing before senior year starts.

But when Grace learns Sage and his family will be joining them, she readies herself for a totally awkward family vacation of disastrous proportions. How can it be anything but awful if Sage won't even acknowledge she exists?

This is it, Grace's last chance to get Sage back and unbreakup.


Release Date: 02/10/15
Swoon Romance 



Review...


I wanted to like this book.  I did.  But I didn't like it.  Let me give my reasons.  Of course, other disagree with me.  Find links to those others below.

My reasons for not liking this book...


This is not how teens act anymore.  As a middle school teacher, I hang out with 11-13 years daily.  I have a lot of former students come back to visit me.  Needless to say, I know how they do act.  Not like this.  They don't wait three years to realize and do something about breaking up with a boy.  They don't only kiss one boy at age 13 and then not again until their 17 with no other kisses in-between.  They don't put up with fake friends that they can't stand for 3 years.  They don't obsess over Star Wars.  (They did that 20 or so years ago but not now.  Other movies have taken it's place).  

The List.  Really there is a list of ways to unbreakup.  And, yes, she does everything on the list.  She probably should have started at the end and instead of the first.  But what really made me crazy was the "Vacation style" of the what happened.  Really, I was expecting the Griswold Family to show up.  Everything that could go wrong with her list, went wrong.  Of course, that might have been funny if that was all.  No this kinda plays into my next issue but each event was kinda stand alone with no real follow-up of what happened right after.  Scenes just changed like they weren't alive until the next big event happened. 

Flat Characters.  Because the scenes just sort of were stuck together, the characters fell flat.  It was like each event on list was written separately and then made it's own chapter with nothing to hold them together in the middle.  Several times, I thought "why wouldn't he come ask her about this later?"  They were sharing a loft with a bunch of bunk beds.  Didn't they ever run into each other until the next event happened?

Jealous, really?  So a brother and sister happen to live next door to where they are staying for the summer.  And, of course, the sister is into Sage and the brother is into Grace.  They show up at just the right moment to mess things up for Grace if she just told Sage how she felt.  It seemed clear to me that the whole story could have happened in a short if she had just told Sage how she felt.  And why did it take her 3 years to decide she still loved him when it took her about 30 seconds to decide to break up with him.  I get that there needs to be a story but this feels forced and, unfortunately, predictable.

It's a figuring out who you are kinda of story.  But really, it's what adults want to think about teens and not what teens are really like.  I don't think that will fly with most teens.  They see through that pretty easily.

I just couldn't get past my issues to enjoy this one.  It felt forced and fell flat.  It's a great premise but I just didn't enjoy it.  About the only thing I liked was when Sage figured things out and took things in his own hands. 


        



Other's felt differently.


 

1 comment:

  1. Yeah... as someone with two teenage sisters, I think I'll pass on this one. I hate it when they are unrealistic =[

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