Hello, everyone! I hope you've all had an awesome weekend so far! I'm here today with another review and I'm excited to bring it out for you guys. Today, I'll be reviewing A Fantastic Mess Of Everything by Beck Medina for the blog tour hosted by YA Bound Book Tours so a huge thanks to the both of them!
I was sent an e-copy of this book in exhcnage for an honest review as part of this blog tour.
Down below, you'll find my review, the links to purchase a copy of the book for yourself, and don't forget the author's links and a link to follow the rest of the blog tour. Without further ado, let's get on with it!
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Rating: PG
Genre: NA Contemporary
Score: 3.5 stars
Page Count: 183
Stand Alone
Publisher: First
Published: August 13th, 2016
Millie Alvarez is a college senior with dreams of being a best selling science fiction writer like her favorite author, sci-fi mastermind Luke Danielson. She fantasizes about dating Rod, her handsome, young writing professor, who has a fan base of his own.
Of course no one knows this but her two best friends, Fran and Mike. In the real world, Millie is anything but a success. She always gets casted in the worst roles in her college's musical productions, has a single subscriber to her writing blog, and struggles to be with anyone but Fran and Mike. She even avoids meeting Trent, an exchange student from London who matches with her on the dating app Charmed. Sam always wants to hang out with Millie, but he isn't her type; he's too skinny and happy and won't stop asking Millie about all her favorite things.
But things spiral out of Millie's control when Fran moves out of their dorm room to live with her sister and her estranged dad won't stop calling her to make amends. To top it all off, the pain inside of Millie's chest is worsening. Millie must decide if she's ready to face everything head on. Can she do it? Is she stronger than she thinks she is? All Millie knows is that her life is one big mess that she cannot seem to escape.
Of course no one knows this but her two best friends, Fran and Mike. In the real world, Millie is anything but a success. She always gets casted in the worst roles in her college's musical productions, has a single subscriber to her writing blog, and struggles to be with anyone but Fran and Mike. She even avoids meeting Trent, an exchange student from London who matches with her on the dating app Charmed. Sam always wants to hang out with Millie, but he isn't her type; he's too skinny and happy and won't stop asking Millie about all her favorite things.
But things spiral out of Millie's control when Fran moves out of their dorm room to live with her sister and her estranged dad won't stop calling her to make amends. To top it all off, the pain inside of Millie's chest is worsening. Millie must decide if she's ready to face everything head on. Can she do it? Is she stronger than she thinks she is? All Millie knows is that her life is one big mess that she cannot seem to escape.
Rating:
PROS:
1. I thought this book sounded like it was going to be a good one when I first read the synopsis because it sounded like a nice contemporary read that would potentially be a little more mature character wise and less juvenile. I was really excited to read this book and I'm happy to say that it was better than I was expecting, especially since there are such good reviews of this book on Goodreads and I was afraid I might not like it as much as everyone else seemed to. Here's the review:2. I really liked our main character, Millie, because she was very relatable and a Hispanic female lead. She was introverted, grew up in a single parent home with her mom after her dad left her when she was a kid and she harbored anger towards him ever since then. Throughout the book, she struggles to trust people again, specifically guys whenever they showed any interest in Millie because she was hurt by her dad. Millie thought people only came into her life to leave a second later so she held most people at a distance to avoid getting hurt by them.
She also lived with anxiety which I thought was a nice character trait since a lot of people suffer from anxiety and I'm also a huge supporter for mental illnesses being in more YA or NA literature, it's a topic I find is ignored in most books and I appreciate that this book had that element. It doesn't dive into the very depths of Millie's anxiety, however, but it does make it known that she has anxiety and takes medication for it. I also really loved Millie's friends as they were really fun and very supportive of each other in all aspects of life. I also loved the love interest, Sam, though I would have liked to get to him a little more since I didn't get to know much about him really but what I got was satisfying enough.3. This book has a nice pace, it's not too slow but not too fast and it plays out quite nicely as the book progresses. It was also quick and easy to read that had a sweet and slow-burning romance, little to no drama as well as some humor added into the mix. It wasn't very descriptive which I liked but more straight to the point which I also really enjoyed especially since it's a contemporary novel that didn't have a ton of drama and the writing style kept the story moving without rushing through it. I would recommend this book to someone who just wants a nice and realistic read such as FANGIRL was that also has themes of writing books and aspiring authors which I think is fitting since it's currently NaNoWriMo.
The reason why I didn't give this book a five-star rating is because the second love interest, Rod, really didn't have a strong enough presence in the story. It seemed like he was just kind of there, popping up every now and then and then disappearing and being forgotten for a majority of the book. He seemed to be more like a backup plan to add interest to the book when I honestly think the story was strong enough to carry itself without Rod. It also irked me that he was Millie's professor and I don't care how young he was, it was gross. A teacher and a student? Nonono. I also didn't care for how some of the dialogue was laid out. It felt like I was reading text messages instead of reading an actual conversation the characters were having:
Millie: “Upstairs.”
Sam: “What's upstairs?”
Millie: “Nothing interesting.”
Sam: “You seemed upset.”
Millie: “I wasn't.”
Overall, I did enjoy this book and though it wasn't perfect, I still liked it and give it a thumbs-up for being a very well-written book that I was able to really like for what it was, what it had to offer, and I'm glad I was able to read it when I did. I think this book is very fitting for fans of FANGIRL as previously mentioned but also fitting for fans of ELEANOR & PARK.
You Can Purchase The Book Here:
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About The Author:
Author Links
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It sounds like this might have been better if the secondary love interest wasn't included at all. But that aside, I really love the sound of Millie as a main character, and the way that she was so ready to face everything head on, but still nervous at the same time. It sounds like the author handled the representation of anxiety well!
ReplyDeleteYes, sometimes a love triangle just doesn't work for a story and this was one of them for me personally. But I did love the representation of Millie's anxiety even though it wasn't too detailed. I highly recommend this one for sure!
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