Author: Adi Alsaid
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Release Date: 1 August, 2014
Source: HarlequinTeen via NetGalley
Goodreads
Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost.Review by Nara
Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.
There's HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday—and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.
Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth— sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.
Well, I do believe it's been quite a while since I have disliked a book so thoroughly. Plot, romance, writing, characters, pace...there was pretty much nothing about this book that I liked.
Seriously, down with the romance. It was just the worst.
Hudson meets Leila for the first time.
Hudson decides he loves Leila.
Leila reciprocates for some mysterious and unexplained reason.
Hudson jeopardises his entire future because he wants to spend a night with Leila.
The day after, Leila says to Hudson (and this is a direct quote from the book) "But wasn't it worth it? It was still the greatest night of your life, right?"
Summary: Leila is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Hudson is an Idiot.
Are you fucking kidding me? He's willing to jeopardise a full scholarship to med school in favour of making out with some girl he literally just met. I see zero chemistry. In fact, and I fucking quote,
Hudson kept stealing glances at Leila's profile, trying to figure out what made her so attractive, but the only intelligible thought he came away with after each stolen glance was: I like her face. I really like her face.
Are you serious?? You cannot possibly be serious right now. INSTALOVE MUCH.
And then Leila goes on to give this guy she LITERALLY MET YESTERDAY life advice, saying she knows him really well and reeling off all these arbitrary observations to support her "argument" that she knows him really well, and NO. Freaking. No.
So this was the first part of the book (which is split into five parts, each from a different POV), and I think my anger about this part tainted the entire book for me, because I couldn't get into any other part. They didn't enrage me as much as this first part did, but they just seemed really mundane and unrealistic. There's this air of unbelievability surrounding all of these stories- it just doesn't make sense to me that all of these people would spill their life secrets to someone they literally just met.
The ending was annoying, to be honest. It just felt irritatingly sappy and unrealistic and it was possibly the worst possible ending I could have imagined at that point, considering I pretty much hated this book.
Hated it
RatingsOverall: 2/10
Plot: 1/5
Romance: 0/5
Writing: 2/5
Characters: 1/5
Cover: 3/5
