40 Things I Want to Tell You, by Alice Kuipers

40 Things I Want to Tell You, by Alice Kuipers

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Romance

Rating: 1.5/5 stars

Publication: February 10, 2012, by HarperTrophy Canada

Format: Paperback Edition (borrowed)




Goodreads Summary: Amy (a.k.a. Bird) seems to have the perfect life: loving parents, a hot boyfriend, the best friend ever. She even writes an online advice column, full of Top Tips, to help other teens take control of their lives. But after a new guy shows up at school, Bird can’t seem to follow her own wisdom.

Pete is the consummate bad boy. He’s everything Bird is not: wild, unambitious and more than a little dangerous. Although she knows he’s trouble, Bird can’t stay away. And the more drawn she is to Pete, the more cracks are revealed in her relationship with Griffin, her doting boyfriend. Meanwhile, her parents’ marriage is also fracturing, possibly for good.

Bird is way out of her comfort zone. All it takes is one mistake, one momentary loss of control, for her entire future to be blown away…

Review:

  DNF @ 90 pages

   I guess I judged this book by its cover too strongly, and then it just happened to end up bad when I thought that it would be amazing.

   I had this book on my reader's eye's radar for quite a long time. I've seen it everywhere, but it wasn't my ultimate first choice when I was getting something at the bookstore. Now, when I finally found it at the library to borrow, everything went downhill, and now I'm thanking myself for borrowing it instead of buying it, because:

      This is your average predictable contemporary-romance read with nothing happening and a stupid love interest who doesn't even want you to open your eyes because of his hideousness. That's my mini-summary. The big one is that Amy (aka: Bird, because she fell out of a tree pretending to be a bird when she was young and ended up breaking her leg and mentions it in every chapter, haha) is an advice columnist on her blog, and almost every question has to do with love, but turns out, she's not the master of it, either. She's currently dating the boy-next-door (literally) and her best friend, Griffin, who loves her to death and can't wait for her birthday, because of a special event. ;) Amy is an overachiever (just like myself) and everything's about getting into Oxford University and having a good future planned out. When she meets Pete, the blonde new guy who's apparently a druggie, she falls head over heels for him and they begin to have a mini-fling going on, behind Griffin's back. Then her whole life begins to fall apart.

       That's where I basically stopped reading this and threw the book down. This is so predictable! And I read the spoilers on what happened later and I was just like:

        What happened later was a definite non-plot twist. I couldn't believe it that people can classify this as a great book! It's worse than the average contemporary read. At least those had some sense into them.

        So you probably can guess that I hated the idea of this book. An advice columnist who is having problems in her life but can't seem to see or solve those? Just let me go bawl my eyes out until there's no more tears to shed.

        In the beginning, I was probably having this at a four-star rating. As I headed toward page 40, I just began to get bored and realize the truth behind this book. I threw it down, went on Goodreads, and found out what happened later. Big woop. -_- I expected something like that to happen to a protagonist who's life is all planned out. Something happened that turned her whole life around. 

        In the beginning, I really liked Amy because I can relate to her. People call me an overachiever, and in some ways, I am. I love school and learning, and will do anything to have a good future. I want to go to university, and have a life. But of course, the author totally changed her personality rapidly after she met Pete, and then I wanted to barf out of sadness. She basically became the opposite of who she originally was in 20 pages. The author introduced Pete in TWENTY PAGES. Come on!

        And he was horrible. I hated him. No heart-eyes or anything in that matter. Everything about him sucks.

         So, yes, I have just gone through a very sad moment when I DNF-ed a book that I really wanted to like and saw the potential in. It was bad, and there's no going back.