Cause love hurts y'all.
Song Vibe Check:
"Accidentally in love" By: Counting Crows
"Why do you love me" By: Charlotte Lawrence
"Life was easier when I only cared about me" By: Bad Suns
I've been meaning to read a book like this for a while. As soon as the slingshot appeared and the slogan for the book which made me chuckle, I knew it'd be a funny read to get into.
And it definitely was. It was super emotional too. And it was refreshingly honest, definitely messy like most things with first love. It did a great job of being a mix of retro and modern too. It tackled some taboo topics in regards to sex from the perspective of women and their desires as well which usually is either avoided or not mentioned in novels often.
As women, topics of sex are either avoided or being danced around, but Mercedes Helnwein really just said "screw that" and went for the honest, raw approach that is eye-opening and refreshing to read where we usually read books that romanticize love and sex like it's super sweet and perfect and sometimes messy. Books usually dance around the pain, but you don't often see the devastation it causes to both parties involved like this book did. It shared a similar vibe to Cynthia Hand's With You all the Way which I enjoyed quite a lot last year.
Anyways... here we go.
Short Summary: Grumpy Slingshot Girl who is heartbroken after an impossible crush saves the new kid with a slingshot and gets tangled up in a complicated love story where everything goes upside down with said new boy.
Longer Summary? Gracie Wells has a bad luck streak. Whether it's with her father who's never around, or her mother with a very delicate mental disposition, or even with her impossible crush on her biology teacher, nothing works out for her. After discovering her impossible crush will stay... well, impossible, she sets to avoid his class altogether where she catches new kid Wade get bullied by three other guys. In a spontaneous practice session with her slingshot, she defends the new guy.
And, that, Ladies and Gentlemen is the beginning of their love story, and the possible end to her somewhat boring life.
Let's note that from here, we have crazy anecdotes of what it's like to find your group of people in high school, the triumphs (and mistakes) of first love and all the big screw ups that lead to crazy downfalls and discoveries into what love really means and whether the universe actually hates all of the single people out there in the world.
Gracie is definitely a prickly main character we don't immediately like and Wade is definitely a mix of chivalrous and the awkward mess who is HORRIBLE at getting the hint, but it was entertaining to read through this book and have moments of where I was laughing, to moments of frustration and definitely moments of surprise that ultimately leave a bittersweet experience while reading.
It was also really heartbreaking and Georgina, the roommate who wrote a love letter to her crush has my heart. Also, Wade writing a heartbreaking letter to Gracie in the ending left me in tears as if I had been the one receiving it, so it does mess with your heart and leave you sad.
I won't spoil the ending, but it leaves some important lessons to be learned about life and it's worth giving it a try at least.
Overall: 4/5 stars
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