99 DaysAuthor: Katie Cotugno
Publisher: Balzer + Bray, 384 pages
Publication Date: April 21, 2015
From Goodreads:
Day 1: Julia Donnelly eggs my house my first night back in Star Lake, and that’s how I know everyone still remembers everything—how I destroyed my relationship with Patrick the night everything happened with his brother, Gabe. How I wrecked their whole family. Now I’m serving out my summer like a jail sentence: Just ninety-nine days till I can leave for college, and be done.
Day 4: A nasty note on my windshield makes it clear Julia isn’t finished. I’m expecting a fight when someone taps me on the shoulder, but it’s just Gabe, home from college and actually happy to see me. “For what it’s worth, Molly Barlow,” he says, “I’m really glad you’re back.”
Day 12: Gabe got me to come to this party, and I’m actually having fun. I think he’s about to kiss me—and that’s when I see Patrick. My Patrick, who’s supposed to be clear across the country. My Patrick, who’s never going to forgive me.
Review:
Flawed characters, messy and complicated relationships between friends, brothers, mothers/daughters, and boyfriends/girlfriends. Yes, Molly makes mistakes (over and over again), but I still felt for her even when I wanted to scream at her to stop. I'm not usually a fan of love triangles and the whole plot revolves around this one, which makes it pretty surprising that I liked this book so much (although maybe it was the fact that it wasn't a gratuitous love triangle thrown in for the drama). It was understandable how she was drawn to both guys, Gabe because he's so easy to be with, things feel good and right when she's with him, but then there's Patrick, who was her other half for so long and she can't get over the way things ended between them. Addicting, soap opera drama, I have to say. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough.
Although I really liked this book, I can understand some of the negative reviews I've read because it's just so REALISTIC. But it makes you feel, and think. I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending (there's a certain someone who admits something to Molly that just made me cringe and I ended up almost hating one of the brothers), but again, it's realistic.
Posted by: Pam
I'm really glad you reviewed this one Pam! I was on the fence about reading it (which means I would have procrastinated reading it long enough to lose all interest) but now I definitely want to. I was turned off by the negative reviews but I liked the authors last book and that had a bunch of mixed reviews too (I know my logic makes no sense). Anyway, I'm kind of curious about the ending.
ReplyDeleteI have this one to read. I hope I enjoy. Flawed characters and love triangles, maybe. Great review, Pam!
ReplyDeletehaha, just commented on your haul going "can't wait to see what you think" then clicked to the next post and was like "oh hey!"
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked this one! I liked it to a certain extent. It was hard to like Molly, but I definitely agree with you that it was realistic. I appreciated that the author let it be messy and ugly because that's how real life is.
But yes, that ending revelation. Not. Cool.
I really enjoyed this one. Like you, I couldn't turn the pages quickly enough. At one point I told myself I HAD to get out of bed to be productive, but stayed put for another 2 hours to finish it. I'm glad you enjoyed it, too, even if you weren't crazy about the ending.
ReplyDelete