1.5 Stars. It took a while to get into this one and once I did, I didn't really feel any connections to any of the characters. Tess is an okay character, nothing out of the ordinary. I guess her "quirk" is that she likes to play chess and is a farm girl at heart. She's nervous about making friends in her new school but makes three best friends very quickly, so there isn't really any suffering there. Tess pines for her best friend across the country, but we don't get a lot of interaction from the two of them so it's kind of dead in the water, in my opinion. Some things just felt problematic to me and then A HUGE SAD THING HAPPENED AT THE END which I guess was supposed to tie it all together. All in all, meh.

Perfect stereotype farm girl moves from the farm and must confront racial issues. Sounds too familiar. I didn't connect with this story at all. It's lacking original everything.

This book stole my ENTIRE HEART. I loved everything about it.

Everything about this story was unique. From the setting, to the characters, to the plot points. I found myself flying through this story in a few days.
While being a contemporary YA novel, this book also packed some powerful messages and an emotional sucker-punch to the stomach.

The best part about the story, to me, was that there were some really important messages regarding race. I really thought the author did a wonderful job pointing out some of my own biases and how we all need to look more closely at our beliefs and the language we use.

I highly recommend this story!

***ARC received in exchange of an honest opinion***

Unfortunately there was nothing in this book that really captured my attention, besides its cover.

I feel like there wasn't really a story there and the little story there was, was kind of flat for my tastes. I couldn't realte to it and I didn't connect with any characters.

Blonde haired, blue eyed, Iowa farm girl Tess Goodwin has her life uprooted when her father reenlists in the military and relocates the family to Fayetteville, North Carolina. “Trading farm crops and silos and tractors for soldiers and loud guns” — it’s a rough transition for Tess. She leaves behind a beloved lifestyle and her best (and in some ways only) friend Zander … for whom she may have some stronger feelings than just friendship. She also enters the very real and dangerous world of the military where “the practice of staying alive is incentivized” with a billboard displaying the number of days with no unit fatalities. However, as they say in her farming community, you “grow where you’re planted,” and this is the story of how she manages to develop in a wildly different environment.

Leaving the homogeneity of Iowa behind, this is Tess’ first experience with racial diversity. Establishing a strong connection with a group of three other girls — military and townie, black and white — she is forced to come to terms with her own implicit biases. While I got a little tired of her feeling “humble and thankful for clemency” so frequently when faced with racial realities of which she was previously unaware, I did appreciate the frank discussions of the topic, exemplified via experiences, educational mini-lectures, and a couple of really good literary discussions drawn from Toni Morrison’s "The Bluest Eye".

A coming-of-age story, it does a nice job of describing the experience for a specific, rather than generic, teen. Tess is a chess enthusiast, a skillful farmer, and has a much closer relationship with her father than her (perfectly normal) mother. The book does a nice job of challenging multiple gender, race, and role assumptions simultaneously.

At times the book feels a little over simplified (problems are solved with far too facile measures) and a few passages feel like mini-lectures rather than the natural expressions of teenage girls, but the characters are appealing, the descriptions of both farm and military life are engaging, and I liked the clear descriptions of difficult racial subjects from the perspective of a white girl who had not needed to consider them before.

Thanks to Light Messages and Netgalley for providing me with an Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

This novel follows Tess, a teenage girl living in a farming community in rural Iowa. Her father re-enlists in the army which necessitates the family's move to North Carolina. The story follows Tess' journey as she adapts to this huge upheaval in her life, and her struggle to maintain old relationships and forge new ones.

This kind of rural setting was one that was new to me. I've read a lot of literature set in the rural South, but an Iowa dairy farm was a first for me. The military base setting in North Carolina was also unfamiliar to me personally, but I felt I understood more about how they function by the end of the novel. Both of the main settings were quite unique and refreshing for a YA novel and I liked how Tess was proud to be from a farming background. All too often this kind of upbringing is pitched as something young people resent and wish to escape from.

The novel highlights themes of racism and white privilege as Tess navigates her new High School and makes friends with Leonetta and Alice, two African American teens. The characterisation and dialogue when these issues were highlighted was sometimes a little clumsy but the author's heart was clearly in the right place. The friendship between Tess and her friends was portrayed well and it's clear the author drew upon her real life female friendships when writing this novel. Themes of bullying and controlling romantic relationships are also explored.

Additionally, the main love story is sweet if a little predictable. Without spoiling anything the story also packs in a hefty emotional punch. I also thought Chess was an interesting hobby for a female YA protagonist so kudos for that.

My only mild criticisms would be that Tess is a little too good to be true sometimes. Is it really realistic that a teenager wouldn't complain once about leaving her home, all her friends and even her beloved cow? The use of 'triflin' heifer' as an insult was also bizarre and cheesy. It was hard to believe that any savvy young person would use that.

Overall a solid YA novel that will strike a chord with many young people. Themes of female friendship, racism, loss and dealing with change will resonate with many readers and the story was unique enough to hold my interest.

Any readers of young adult fiction are going to want to read this one. I personally found it inspiring. We have a teenage girl whose life has been uprooted and she is forced to find her path in life. This book is relatable for many, not just younger readers, and I am really glad I had the opportunity to read it.

Full review to come closer to release.

I want to thank Netgalley for giving me an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book broke my heart in such an amazing way I absolutely loved it.
I immediately connected to our main character tess and feel like we would be friends in real life.
The character development absolutely blew me away so much that I literally couldn’t put it down until I finished it.
Overall this book is now one of my top 5 favourite reads this year.
It’s a very meaningful and deep read that will pull at all your heartstrings.
I gave it a fully deserved 5 stars.

Tess Goodwin lives the good life on her family's diary farm in Iowa. When she's not bonding with the cows and giving each and every one their own name, she's enjoying the company of her next door neighbor Zander who has been her best friend since practically birth, planning her next move in the latest chess game, or just spending time with her friends as group. But when her father blindsides the family with his announcement that he not only reenlisted in the Army, but the family is moving to Fayetteville, North Carolina and living on base at Fort Bragg, Tess is left grasping for pieces of the life she once lived including Zander who may be more to her than she ever considered. Entering into a new world and school, Tess makes these instantaneous , interracial friendships that she wouldn't have made other ways back in Iowa and with their support, guidance, and encouragement, they help each other navigate the perils of high school, boys, mean girls, drama, prejudices, and tragedy all while realizing that they are more alike than they realize in their hardships and struggles, but that each one brings something new and uniquely different to the table in her own way making their friendship and bond so special and giving Tess something that she didn't realize she was missing.

I immediately connected to Tess. She lives on a dairy farm (I have lived on a farm for almost 10 years), she loves playing chess (I was taught by a 12 year old how to play when I was 16!), and while she moves from Iowa to Fayetteville, North Carolina, I have lived in NC my entire life. I actually live about 2.5 hours away from Fayetteville and have been to Fort Bragg. So a lot of immediate connections which excited me!

The story is driven with these different, powerful types of relationships that Tess has: to understanding and admiration for this amazing group of girls, to her loving, solid bond she has with her father, to this patient, sweet budding romance with Zander, it shows every one of them in this bright, positive light that we just don't see enough of.

The Next to Last Mistake is a quick, but meaningful, deep read that is not only good for the heart, but the soul as well. Make this a must!

The Next To The Last Mistake by Amalie Jahn
I have to say I didn't like this story at all! There was no real story there even when you started to see a story developing with the friends it all of a sudden takes a different turn and you lose the story! There was so many opportunities for a great story and it just gets lost to me In to much background noise
2 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Next To Last Mistake follows Tess, a teenage girl who gets uprooted from her hometown in Iowa and moved to North Carolina. She faces the pressures of rebuilding a life in a new town with a huge new school while not wanting to leave her previous life behind.

This is a wonderful YA book. Nothing too wild happens, but the ending really packs an emotional punch. Tess is introduced to differences in such a way that a small town in Iowa could not present to her, and she grows as a person because of it. This was a lovely, shorter read, and I would definitely recommend this for the YA crowd.

Edit: At the time of writing this review, NetGalley is unable to attach this to Goodreads, but this review has been shared there also!