Always Never Yours by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka - Reshelved Books

Before we need this year I'm going to squeeze in one last review!

Using the cover of the book provided by Amazon!!

Then I would like to pose a question to everyone: 
Do y'all like it better when YA book reviews are posted to the blog? Or do y'all like it better when we post adult fiction/non-fiction book reviews to the blog? 

I think that the answer to this question is YA book reviews but I'm not entirely sure...
I'm also not asking for the sake of this review, which happens to be YA, but out of curiosity.

Today's review will be on Always Never Yours by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka! 

I stumbled upon this book by chance in Barnes and Noble a couple weeks ago.  You know how it goes, you find a book on the shelf and you find the cover art to be pretty.  So you go and buy it and the result is that you're either happy with what you've purchased or you find it be just okay.

The story focuses on main character, Megan Harper, her trails and tribulations in being the lead in her school's production of Romeo and Juliet and figuring out whether she's "more Juliet or more of a Rosaline".

I'm gonna cut to the chase here: I found the book to be boring.  It was about Megan having to practice her acting, finding out that her father and her step mom plan on moving to another state, and her blossoming friendship with Owen. 

The book didn't pick up until the last 1/2.  When Megan found out her ex-boyfriend cheated on her with her best friend.  When her mother tells her that she's going to be staying for the birth of her new half sister.  Megan and Will also start to date. 

My overall feelings on this book? It's okay.  It's nothing to write home about.  I found it weird that Buzzfeed declared that the main character was "empowered"! But the girl is 17!! How could she possibly be empowering??  

I was talking to a girl that I work with and she said that sometimes YA authors write books seemingly forgetting that their target audience is teens and that these characters act very mature.  Some of the behaviors that Megan acted on, were too strong and some of the ways that she said things were also too strong.  (I thought that this behavior in an adult would be more "empowering" than it was in a 17 year old).

My final thoughts? 

Sad to say that this book wasn't worth it for me.  I didn't find the story to be all that great.  I feel a little unclear on what actually Megan was trying to learn or accomplish.  Yes, I get that having her be an actor in the play was to help her character "grow" but I didn't find there to be much character growth.  Yes, she had a fight with her best friend and she learned that she was lied to.  Yes, she got her chance with Will, where she saw that he went to spend time with Alyssa and not go to the Senior Showcase like he said he would. (I would like to point out that this doesn't work with the hypothesis that Megan is the girl all guys date before they find their girlfriends.  I don't think anyone would reason having a girlfriend in someone like this Alyssa character).

I give Always Never Yours 3 coffee beans out of 5. 

- Jillian