Books Everyone Loved (Excluding Me)

I saw this post on Reading Teen and thought it was brilliant idea, especially making me feel like 'Oh so I wasn't the ONLY one to not like Book A'. Everyone is intitled to their own opinion especially something so varied like books or movies or music. The times people have judged because of your opinion on a certain band or song is silly and I find it sometimes a bit flustering if someone asks what bands I like or what books or films in case they judge my choices (FYI: a guilty pleasure of mine is Take That...I quite enjoy their music...). 

Let me know if you agree (or disagree!) with any of my choices. Really, I want to hear...

You Against Me

Jenny Downham

After all the raving reviews I've seen, I'm starting to wonder if I was reading a completely different book. I had read Before I Die a few years before this one, not particularly understanding it as I was only about 13. So when I started this at age 16, I thought 'Yep, I'll understand this'. And I did. But I thought the book was quite tedious and boring. In my review, I was desperately trying to pull out some positives and probably sounding more positive about the book than I actually felt as a result. I still don't quite understand why people like this book. 

(Review)

Numbers 

Rachel Ward

I rarely stop reading a book however much I dislike it or find it boring. But sometimes it's just too much. And this is one of them. OH MY FRICKING GOSH JEM WAS THE MOST ANNOYING CHARACTER EVER. And seriously, the male protagonist that we're all supposed to fall for is defined by smelling really, really bad?! This book seemed a little confused to me, like it couldn't quite decide on a message or genre and in the end I just gave up. One of the worst books I've read to be honest.

(Review)

New Girl

Paige Harbison

As much as possible I try to be positive about the books I read, even if I didn't particularly like them or are on the fence in my opinion. Yet I think my review for New Girl was the harshest I've ever written but entirely my own opinion. I was actually horrified by this book, why did people like it when it was so awful? Why take an absolute classic book (this is based VERY loosely on Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier), take the plot and characters and then just wreck it to shreds. I really did not like this book. (Review)

Matched

Ally Condie

Okay, so I know a few people would agree with me but it has to be said. Why did the whole blogosphere bow and absorb Matched as one of the best YA dystopians, comparing to the likes of Divergent or The Hunger Games? Because it really wasn't that special. I thought it was mediocre and I must have enjoyed it even only a little bit as I read the subsequent sequels (which got better as the series continued). I just hated Cassia. And Ky (everyone apart from Xander really). I thought the concept, although original, was a little bit confusing and even now after finishing the series, I still don't quite understand it. It was an okay book, just really, really definitely not one of the best YA dystopians. (Review)

You Against Me - Jenny Downham

This was always one of those books that intrigued me because of the front cover yet I never picked it up or saw it. It was only when I was looking at the book in WH Smiths the other day that I saw this book and thought it looked and sounded so interesting and unique.

The only problem was the author. While everyone raves about Before I Die, Jenny Downham's first book, I didn't like it that much. It was, well, average for me. And to this day I still don't understand the wow factor it has. That's what made me hesitant about this book. Although, when I saw it in the library, I grabbed it. To say the least, it was what I expected.

Synopsis: If someone hurts your sister and you're any kind of man, you seek revenge, right? If your brother's been accused of a terrible crime and you're the main witness, then you banish all doubt and defend him. Isn't that what families do? When Mikey's sister claims a boy assaulted her at a party, his world of carelessness work and girls begins to fall apart. When Ellie's brother is charged with the crime, but says he didn't do it, her world of revision and exams begins to unravel. When Mikey and Ellie meet, two worlds collide and it changes the course of how they see things. 


Review:
I have been putting off this review for a while because I had no idea what to write at all about it. 
I did like reading this book, there's no doubt about that but there was just something about it that made me not enjoy it as much as another book would. 


I have read a couple of reviews which all rave about this book and Downham's debut, Before I Die which I read a couple of years ago. I think the problem is that for me, her writing is quite flat, although she deals with the taboo type subjects really well. 
Her writing is readable and interesting but to me, it's nothing special. It's good, but it dips too much and there were times where I just wanted to get the book read and done, when normally I just would have stopped reading and moved on. But I didn't. I just wanted to finish the book, and go on to the next one. This was partly because it, for me, wasn't that great a book and partly because I wanted to know what happened. That's one of things I did love about this book, as well as the characters.


Mickey is one of those that you would class as a 'lad' or 'hard', although as you get into the book, he reveals a softer, kinder side to him as he is ultimately trying to help his younger sister. He is the only male in the family now who live in a council estate, with his sister refusing to go out, his mother turning to alcohol for answers and his youngest sister not going to school most of the time. However, he is ambitious. He wants to be a top chef in London. Set in a seaside town in Norfolk and with the stereotypes we take from where he lives, it seems like it will never happen, to start off with. By the end, you start to believe with him that it can happen and whatever your living and financial situations are, you can achieve whatever you want.  I like Mickey, more nearer the end as he does ultimately use Ellie to start off with for information, which kind of makes you hate him a bit. 


Ellie, on the other hand, is completely different. She is studious and always at home, revising constantly for her upcoming GCSE's (I know how it feels, really). At first, when she meets Mickey, she seems innocent and feisty but for me, it was lost nearly straight away. I liked her being hesitant about Mickey and questioning. Latterly in the book, she got annoying to me. I don't know why, but she did. I was annoyed at her for not telling the police sooner and for doing what she does in the novel. I preferred Mickey over her. Her father and brother are some of the most annoying characters I have read, seriously. Her father, I wanted to punch for being so horrible to Ellie, when she had done nothing at all wrong (seriously, she would just eat something and that's wrong.) Doesn't he care that funnily enough, he has another child? Obviously not. 
Tom, the brother, he just seemed to be so selfish and manipulative - both characters seemed unreal to me. 


The romance in the novel doesn't hit off straight away. What was weird for me was how Ellie accepts to meet up with a complete stranger. Although, they both do this for comfort and to find things out to help their families. It reminded me of a modern Romeo and Juliet where the feud is really within the rest of the family, not the couple themselves. However, there is no deaths. There is subtle romance throughout until the last few hundred pages where is seemed that the romance button suddenly switched on for the couple and the book. 
I also liked how Downham has left a bit of a mystery at the end, although as we've followed the court case the whole way through, I would have liked to know the outcome. At the beginning, I assumed Karyn (Mickey's sister) had changed her mind and accused Tom of rape but throughout the book, this judgement changed and by the end of it, I, and many others, thought 'Maybe Tom is guilty'. You never know, Downham's left the rest to you. I didn't like the end really, apart from this. It was weird how they were one minute being torn apart by their families and then, the next day, they're not and it's absolutely fine. It just seemed so unrealistic to me. 


Overall, this is a good book which outlines what it is like to be in that kind of situation of both sides, the defendant and the accused, and the impact within the family - it really gives you an experience of the emotions you feel and how the other children may think as they get left out. However, it is flawed and the writing was just flat and not always interesting in parts. Definitely an improvement from Before I Die
Verdict: If you liked Before I Die or these kind of books, go for it.


I give it a 3 out of 5


Author's Website: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/628636.Jenny_Downham
Pages: 413
Publisher: Random House
Challenges: British Books Challenge