Good story that took me a minute to get into. When I did the story picked up and was good till the ending. It had a few slower parts but nothing too drastic.

I’m sorry to say that I struggled to finish this book. I couldn't relate to the characters and was not drawn into the story in the first few chapters. I like to get hooked into the storyline quickly or I lose interest. I wasn’t sure where the story was going and nothing happened to hold my interest and make me feel I wanted to keep reading.

I liked this book, but the chapters were long, and timewise it jumped around which was at times confusing. Krista wasn't super likable, but I think most college aged girls behave similarly.

Thank you Netgalley and Idun for the ARC!

I didnt really like this book for many reasons.
1)the main character was unlikeable and unrelatable.she was annoying and all she evr did was complain
2) the plot was all over the place,i couldnt keep track of what the story was about

: "I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Not my favorite book for sure. I found it hard to stay interested and although I'm more middle aged then YA, I don't believe it would be different for them. I found myself reading the words, but not retaining them causing me great confusion. I did like the long chapters though.

This book wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t something I really enjoyed either. The writing style was hard for me to get interested and hold that interest throughout the book. Maybe because it seemed to kinda jump all over the place. I think that’s why I didn’t seem to connect with any of the characters in the book which made it a struggle t0 want to read.

I was really excited about the description of this book because I love stories about people figuring at their lives in college, but boy was this book impossible to track. The timeframes jump around without any indication that I could follow. There is a lot of religious discussion, which I wasn't prepared for. The main character is unlikable and obnoxious.

I really struggled with this book. The storyline seemed to jump all over the place and it would give you unnecessary dialogue and then miss other more important details. I found it even harder to like Krista. All she did was complain. Like others have mentioned, the storyline lacked development and was rather boring.

This book is very relatable. It touches on anxiety and the struggles of dealing with it. It also touches on a little bit of poverty. Not everyone’s life is rainbows and sunshine. The author shines a light on what the average household is. She also shines a light on crucial decisions families have to make to accommodate them and their financial needs.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.

Long chapters. Enough said. But long chapters where nothing happens… no thank you.
Found myself re reading chapters as I was so confused what was a memory or actually happening.
Why such long chapters?!
39% in and the story hasn’t moved. It actually feels like it’s going backwards.
Seeing 1 hour and 1 minute left in chapter killed me at 63%
87% and no idea if she’s made enough money.. she had her last day in her job but what is going on?!
So story finished and I felt like there wasn’t any real story here…disappointing as there were so many avenues to go through.

This novel seemed to be all over the place, one sentence you are reading about current time the next sentence it jumps to something completely different. The protagonist, Krista, was extremely frustrating to want to like. Page after page Krista was constantly complaining about EVERYTHING. There was a lot of hypocrisy as well, being that Krista is a Christian but making some very questionable life choices, for example The way Krista judged other people, not wanting to make friends with them because of they way they dressed? The storyline was just lacking development, and seemed dull the whole story.

A story about a girl attending college and facing the reality of lack of funds. Well, personally it's not really my kind of a book. It was very slow paced and pages went on for long, sort of like you could miss 3 pages and not miss anything important. I'm going to be honest here, it was boring. The only interesting characters were Martha, Alisha and Drena but there wasn't much content covering them. I did however like how it doesn't sugarcoat anything and shows the reality of having to pay for education and wanting things that you just have to work an extra mile for, however, the story didn't actually focus mainly on that. Which brings me to my next point, I had no clue what was going on. Parts of the story were confusing and way more times than one I lost track of the plot completely. The way flashbacks/memories were written made it really confusing to establish what was happening in the time of the story and what was happening in the past.
I mean, some people may enjoy it, but honestly I had no motivation to finish it.

Age: 12/13/14+
Mentions of drinking and parties (in no detail whatsoever at all though.) Mentions of sex (in not a sexual way, they were playing hangman and the answer was vex but she guessed sex.) Mentions of flirting and dating but really in no detail and was quite realistic.

A great read about growing up and the lessons learnt. If you are a person in a transitional stage in your life, this could be somewhat relatable to you.

Read from October 15th to October 16th, 2022. Written on October 17th, 2022.

Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this book. I did finish it, but it was hard to do so. So here's what I didn't like about it:

The storyline and writing - it was weird, to say the least. It was clear that Krista, the character whose POV we read, is on summer break before going on her sophomore year of college, but the way the story is written is confusing because there is no separation between her memories/past and the present. So one moment she is sitting on a bench near a lake and the next paragraph she's playing 21 questions with a boy named Victor during freshman year. These jumps were hard to follow because there was no formatting difference between the two time changes. Maybe a text separation or italicising the text could help.

What happened to Valentina? - Valentina, Krista's older sister, makes a decision sort of early on in the book, follows it and we never hear about her character again. She is mentioned maybe 2/3 times, but we have no idea where she is, what's she doing or anything like that, like her character just stopped existing. It would be nice to have some sort of context since she is clearly an important character for Krista, and maybe some interactions.

Job Degradation (in a way) (minor spoilers!) - Krista finds a job at a big department store at a certain point in the book and she finds a guy who asks her on a date, and she says it could never work between the two of them because he was too proud of his job and she was disturbed by that. Also, she says that, and I quote "That would just be terrible" if the two of them ended up together and she was one of the most successful gallery owners, and he worked at the department store. For me, that was so awful to read because it felt like she was degrading his job because it wasn't "big" like her dream one. I truly hated that and I wish that wasn't mentioned in the book because it looked, to me, that she was just stepping on mud, cleaning her shoes on him/his job before entering her job. It was just terrible.

Mentions of God - For someone who isn't Christian, or religious at all, all the parts where God is mentioned, the long paragraphs or the relationship description between Krista and God or anything in the sorts, are uncomfortable. This may be applied just to me, other readers may not feel this way, but I do. I don't mind reading about a character who is religious, but I have never read anything like this before. It's hard to describe, but things like "going to church on Sunday" or "saying my daily prayers" is okay for me, but going into (sort of) heavy detail on one's relationship to a religion and to a God is not what I would like to read. It is a part of the character, I know, but, like I said, for someone who isn't Christian, or religious, it's weird to read about it. Again, maybe I was the only one who felt this way, but it affected my opinion on the book.

Typos - Like any ARC, the book had some typos that need to be reviewed, nothing shocking, nothing I haven't experienced.

Characters, in general - With this book, I felt absolutely no connection to any of the characters, in any way. I would read about them and feel like I still knew nothing about them, which makes it hard to actually enjoy the reading experience, when I can't even relate or understand the characters and what makes them, them.

The ending, more specifically the last sentence - After reading a book about personal growth and new improvements to one's self, the last thing I expected was for the last sentence on the book to revolve around a boy I had absolutely no interest in reading about. When a book ends with a thought of "oh well, guess next year is going to be the same like last year because I still cannot get over character a and will probably keep thinking about them non-stop", it's annoying, to say the least. I expected something that transmitted hope for a future or an idea for comfort or something positive, not keep crushing over a boy who only gives mixed signals. After so much thinking and working and improving from Krista throughout the book, that was honestly the last thing I expected to read when I finished the book.

Lastly, not everything was bad, obviously. I actually enjoyed the story, I just wished it was presented in a different way. To read about her self-growth and the way she navigated her life to get to where she wanted was really interesting and, in a way, made me reflective of my own choices in life. And I loved that the book did that do me. Maybe this just wasn't the book for me, but it could be for someone else so, I have absolutely zero hate towards the author because I understand how hard it is to write something, and I have nothing but respect for the work Christian Cook did.

Signing off,
B.

(Free ARC from Net Galley that I chose to review after reading)

thank you to the pusblisher and netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review

this book sheds light on the main characters once upper class family, and shows her journey to adult hood. A great read and engaging book.

This ARC was provided to me via Kindle, from Idun ann imprint of W. Brand Publishing and #NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity to preview and review. Opinions expressed are completely my own.


Life is and isn’t about what you make it.

I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone growing up. I loved the way it was written and it was a page turner! thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read and review it.