Review for Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid!
Quick View Review
Characters: ** (2/5)
Plot: *** (3.5/5)
Writing Quality: **** (4/5)
Amazon Rating: *** (3.5/5)
One sentence review: A mix of predictable and unexpected, with meh characters and an interesting premise, this book will release you from a book slump and make you extremely happy.
Pairings: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins, Paper Towns by John Green
Playlist: Love Story by Taylor Swift
Great Summer by Vance Joy
Air by Shawn Mendes
for him. by Troye Sivan, Allday
History by One Direction
Full Review
(This is going to be a really short summary, but I promise it will tell you everything you need to know).
Before freshman year, Dave and Julia create a Nevers list to avoid becoming cliché… Except Dave has broken rule #8, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school (hmm… I wonder who that special someone could possibly be). Then Julia and Dave decide to break every single Never on the list, and find out that just maybe they’ve been missing out on high school.
I expected this book to be 100 thousand percent cliché and predictable, and this book only slightly defied that expectation… Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it kinda was. Looking back, I feel like Alsaid was like “Hey, if I throw in Gretchen maybe this book won’t be like every single other high school story!” Because, seriously, the only thing that didn’t make this book the cheesiest most predictable thing ever was Gretchen. It was really fun to read while it lasted (which was like 2 days) and until I moved on to another book, but reflecting on it revealed to me that this novel possesses some serious flaws.
Let’s start with the characters (there are positive things, I promise!). I liked Gretchen more or less, but I felt like her life was almost too perfect. She was pretty, popular, athletic, smart, seemed more or less well off financially, and why don’t we top it off with a perfect personality? She was FLAWLESS, and that bothered the heck out of me. Like come on, can’t the girl just have one thing wrong with her? Moving on. Dave. Boring, predictable, and annoying most of the time. I wanted (and tried) so desperately to like him, but ended up mostly annoyed with his decisions and impartial to what happened to him. The only good character in this book was Julia. Yes, she wasn’t entirely as great as I wished she had been, but her personality was the only one I could even slightly relate to. I loved her sarcastic attitude, and although some people might say that they didn’t like how she idolized her mom, I honestly think that’s a realistic situation, similar to how Scout idolized Atticus in To Kill A Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. I was cheering for her throughout the entire novel, and I really cared about her ending more than anyone else’s… Ok more like her ending was the only one I cared about.
The plot was pretty good. I felt like the premise was mostly there and I liked the idea: the final high school experience and making the most out of the last months, but I felt like instead of being a rollercoaster, this story was a straight highway with some minor twists and turns. They did the Nevers, and that was pretty much it. None of the experiences were particularly exciting or memorable, which I guess might’ve been the goal considering they were all supposed to be normal experiences, but still… I just wish the plot had been more exciting (and that could just be a personal opinion). The one thing I loved about the plot was the development of the romance. Although I felt absolutely no connection to most of the characters, the romance was realistically portrayed and was overall well developed. It wasn’t one of those extraordinary crazy romances like Cinder and Kai in the Lunar Chronicles, but it was just normal, which I kinda enjoyed.
Overall, this book was just another read: nothing truly unique or special. I disliked most of the characters and didn’t connect to them, and the plot had some good and bad aspects. For pairings and a super awesome playlist to go along with this novel, look above in the quick view review ;).
Make sure to come back next Wednesday for a new review!
Happy reading!
Jordan (whew, that was kinda a long one, wasn’t it?)
