Author: Nicola Yoon
Year Published: 2016
Genre: YA fiction (romance)
Pages: 348
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location (my 2017 Google Reading map): USA (NY)
FTC Disclosure: I bought this book with my own money
Summary (from the inside flap of the book): Natasha: I'm a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I'm definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won't be my story.
Daniel: I've always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents' high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store--for both of us.
The universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?
Review: I loved Nicola Yoon's earlier novel, Everything Everything, and this one won the ALA Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award given to a African-American youth lit author. I keep trying to get this one at my school libraries, but it is always checked out. Definitely a good sign.
Surprisingly, I had a tough time getting into this one. Perhaps that's because I had just read so many good books so quickly and my brain was on overdrive. Or maybe I had just built this up to be something that it isn't. I didn't dislike it at first, I just wasn't pulled in the way I wanted. The book has very short (sometimes one page) chapters and that could have contributed as well, I think I wanted more from each "chapter." But, after about page 100, I was totally into this book and read the rest in one sitting.
I don't think of myself as a romantic; I am much too practical. But, I do love a good romantic story so this one worked for me on that front. I wanted things to work out for Natasha and Daniel because life so often isn't that exciting and passionate. The fact that there is an epilogue that takes them into adulthood made me happy as well because we usually don't know what happens to characters when the story ends, but in this book, we find out a lot about their future and that's fun.
This book is also about fate. Who do we run into and when, what if we had missed each other by a few seconds, or not said something at the right moment. I like the idea that each moment matters and that we should take chances. Sometimes they won't work out, but sometimes they will and those are the things and moments on which we build our lives.
Challenges for which this counts:
FTC Disclosure: I bought this book with my own money
Summary (from the inside flap of the book): Natasha: I'm a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I'm definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won't be my story.
Daniel: I've always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents' high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store--for both of us.
The universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?
Surprisingly, I had a tough time getting into this one. Perhaps that's because I had just read so many good books so quickly and my brain was on overdrive. Or maybe I had just built this up to be something that it isn't. I didn't dislike it at first, I just wasn't pulled in the way I wanted. The book has very short (sometimes one page) chapters and that could have contributed as well, I think I wanted more from each "chapter." But, after about page 100, I was totally into this book and read the rest in one sitting.
I don't think of myself as a romantic; I am much too practical. But, I do love a good romantic story so this one worked for me on that front. I wanted things to work out for Natasha and Daniel because life so often isn't that exciting and passionate. The fact that there is an epilogue that takes them into adulthood made me happy as well because we usually don't know what happens to characters when the story ends, but in this book, we find out a lot about their future and that's fun.
This book is also about fate. Who do we run into and when, what if we had missed each other by a few seconds, or not said something at the right moment. I like the idea that each moment matters and that we should take chances. Sometimes they won't work out, but sometimes they will and those are the things and moments on which we build our lives.
Challenges for which this counts:
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