Author: Stefanie Lyons
Publication: April 8th 2015 by Flux
Genre: YA Contemporary Verse
Source: Provided by the kind publisher...
Goodreads
When a good girl falls for a bad boy
She thought she loved him. She thought she could change him. She thought if she just believed in him enough, his cheating and his drugs and his lying would stop, and she'd be his and he'd be hers and they'd love each other forever.
But for Samantha Henderson, X-the boy she will not name-is trouble. He's older, edgier, bohemian . . . and when he starts paying attention to Sam, she can't resist him. Samantha's family and friends try to warn her, but still she stays with him, risking her future and everything that really matters.
As moody and vivid as it is captivating, Dating Down is told in scenes and bursts of poetry that create a story filled with hurt, healing, and hope.
She thought she loved him. She thought she could change him. She thought if she just believed in him enough, his cheating and his drugs and his lying would stop, and she'd be his and he'd be hers and they'd love each other forever.
But for Samantha Henderson, X-the boy she will not name-is trouble. He's older, edgier, bohemian . . . and when he starts paying attention to Sam, she can't resist him. Samantha's family and friends try to warn her, but still she stays with him, risking her future and everything that really matters.
As moody and vivid as it is captivating, Dating Down is told in scenes and bursts of poetry that create a story filled with hurt, healing, and hope.
-- My Rating --
4/5 Oscars: Really liked it
NOTE: I haven't written reviews for AGES now, and my blog has seen nothing since February, but I wrote this review months and months ago, so any of the thoughts I've had about this book are blurred now. And frankly, I do not remember much about it.
Samantha fell in love. Hard. But sometimes love is not enough to overcome obstacles and the people we think we love the most are the ones who can hurt us beyond repair, and this is what Samantha learns.
It's been quite a long time since I've read a novel in verse. I write verse and I read poetry constantly, but I don't know why i just don't stumble across any well-written novel in verse. Rarely do I find something unique and thankfully, this was.
Samantha is heartbroken over a guy, but she will not name him, she will only refer to him as X. I thought this was a refreshing thing and throughout the whole book, we only know this character as X and not knowing the name never stopped me from connecting with Samantha and her worries and her heartbreak. There is also Samantha, our narrator. She has a wonderful voice, so unique and charming. I don't think I would have connected as much with her if the novel had not been in verse. I think I would have found her to be very shallow and one-dimensional. But the unique and powerful verses gave her a voice and a background. I loved that.
It was definitely the verses that helped me fly through this book in only a couple of hours. There's not much more I can say about this book, you have to read it for yourself and decide. I didn't give this book five stars because it was talking about much milder topics than I initially thought, I wanted it to be a bit darker. But I will definitely be reading more from the author, she knows how to write verse indeed.
