"Friendship...and falling in love?
"At the beginning of her sophomore year, Marisa is ready for a fresh start, and hopefully her first real boyfriend. Could it be popular, dreamy Derek? Or geeky Nash, who might just have a crush on her? Then there's the underground, anonymous DJ, whose podcasts are the hottest thing at school and who seems to totally understand Marisa. But she doesn't know who he is...or does she?"
I think this has to be my favourite of Susane's books to date. Marisa suffers from anxiety issues, and suffered depression in her freshman year at high school. Now she wants to make more friends, find a boyfriend and be 'normal' again. But it's easier said than done, especially when things aren't so great at home, or between her and her best friend, who has guy issues of her own.
I found Marisa very easy to like. I've suffered from depression and still suffer from some anxiety issues, so I found her very easy to relate to. I really enjoyed the story, how while not perfect, both guys were actually decent guys. It would be easy for one of them to have been drawn as a real jerk and make the answers obvious, but that's not the case.
Like Susane's other books, she does a very good job of creating a more rounded world showing bits of side characters stories, the issues seen but not dealt with in full. I like getting that little look, that shows it's not just the protagonist dealing with things. And that she's not just dealing with any single person, and her relationships with other people can affect the romantic relationship that is generally the focus as well.
It's actually not quite the easy, predictable story I expected. Yes, certain parts of it are, but there are little things along the way that surprised me and I liked them. Overall it was a really good, pretty quick read. It moves along at a pretty decent pace and the characters are well rounded with enough depth that you can get really sucked in to their lives. I really wanted to find out how things would work out for Marisa. Very enjoyable read! 9/10
1 comment:
I'm a big fan of Susane's writing, and this one is actually on my shelf, waiting to be read. I have no idea why I haven't started on it yet! Thank you so much for the review :)
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