Krishna
A book that will appeal to young girls, I guess, perhaps exclusively.
The story is very simple. The narrator is Willow, a young woman and the daughter of a naturalist and tree hugging hippie type mom. (Hence her name). By the way, I wonder if the author’s name with Autumn in it is suggestive of this being semi biographical?
Dustin, the boyfriend, breaks up with her and she feels horrible. They drink to help her forget her heartbreak, surprising her younger brother, who has never seen Dawn drink before
Yawn, so far.
Then an odd thing happens as you continue to read, undaunted. It gets interesting.
Willow meets Alex almost a day after she breaks up and is immediately attracted. As soon as you start thinking that your first impressions of the book were wrong, there comes a lot of moping about Dustin. You are back in the depths of boredom.
If you are not into troubles of teenage girls, this can get boring. The story is all about love troubles in school and how she just wants to die.
Overall, the book reads like the diary of a schoolgirl. Frenemies, gym, classes, rivalries, gossip, gentle ostracization – the whole nine yards.
She feels small, smaller, then blunders, and feels small, smaller. She thinks of Alex… dreamy!
Total misunderstandings stop her from becoming close with Alex though both seem to be interested in each other.
Dustin seems to hover over her, but still under Taylor’s thumb. And you think ‘These are the problems in your life, Willow? Oh for the uncomplicated life of a teenage girl!’
Nothing really happens. Much. In the entire book, but let us go on.
Alex comes back into her life with a bang. She loves … ooooh… loves him. Enough, I think you get the gist.
This thing is a Hollywood soppy romantic comedy style stuff, with twists for the sake of a twist and characters running away from each other and changing their minds about running away at the drop of a hat.
It is a sort of a ‘he loves me, he loves me not… he loves me and he loves me not’. Round and round like you are on a merry go round in a carnival.
The bad guys get their just desserts, the good girl feels liberated and finds the one true love that had always, always eluded her.
The end
3/10
– – Krishna