Hello Readers!

For today’s post, I will be writing my review for the Advanced Readers Copy of Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid that I was able to get during the Harlequin Teen signing at Book Expo America. My favorite quotes that I used for the quote edits are from the Advanced Readers Copy, which means that they may or may not be in the final copy, which comes out August 4, 2015. Everything written in this review is simply my opinion. I think you should still consider reading this book.

never always sometimes

Book Title: Never Always Sometimes

Author: Adi Alsaid

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Number of pages: 288

Genre: young adult, contemporary, romance

Release Date: August 4th 2015

 

Favorite Quotes:

combine 1

combine 2

Goodreads Synopsis:

Never date your best friend.

Always be original.

Sometimes rules are meant to be broken.

Best friends Dave and Julia were determined to never be cliché high school kids—the ones who sit at the same lunch table every day, dissecting the drama from homeroom and plotting their campaigns for prom king and queen. They even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they’d never, ever do in high school.

Some of the rules have been easy to follow, like #5, never dye your hair a color of the rainbow, or #7, never hook up with a teacher. But Dave has a secret: he’s broken rule #8, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school. It’s either that or break rule #10, never date your best friend. Dave has loved Julia for as long as he can remember.

Julia is beautiful, wild and impetuous. So when she suggests they do every Never on the list, Dave is happy to play along. He even dyes his hair an unfortunate shade of green. It starts as a joke, but then a funny thing happens: Dave and Julia discover that by skipping the clichés, they’ve actually been missing out on high school. And maybe even on love.

My Review:

3.75/5 stars

I first heard about the author, Adi Alsaid at the 2014 BookCon with his release of Let’s Get Lost. I was able to snag the first 100 pages of Let’s Get Lost and I was really excited to learn that he was writing another book….. But unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed.

I was intrigued by the concept of the book, how the author thought of purposely writing cliches into his book. I thought this was very creative. Mainly with TV shows and movies, you are bombarded with cliches with the teenagers, but its not done on purpose.. which makes it very obnoxious :-). Including the cliches on purpose was one of the reasons why I liked this book.

I really liked a LOT of the quotes throughout this book because that is what I related to more and what I believe in. I think it’s important for people to come out of their shell, just like what the characters did. However, I think that it’s even more important that they decided on their own to do this versus because forced to do so. I feel as though I am personally more comfortable when I can come out of my shell on my own terms versus someone else’s terms.

When you come out of your shell, you begin to learn more about yourself and more about what you want in life. I enjoyed the deeper, more meaningful points that the author brings up, ie. having adventures and coming out of your shell.

However, there is DEFINITELY a reason why I gave this book 3.75 out of 5 stars. I really could not stand Dave and Julia. Don’t get me wrong, they were both very well written, but I could not relate to either of them, which is one of my major reasons for giving a book higher stars. I found Julia to be obnoxious and spastic. I felt that she would act a certain way in order to get attention. I personally don’t find that to be an endearing quality, especially in a girl. I won’t get into two much detail about Dave and Julia, but they really made me want to scream with everything they did.. and not in a good way.

Even though I did not give this book a higher rating, I am still glad that I had the opportunity to read this book.

Author Websites:

Goodreads

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Instagram