(as always, clicking on the cover will take you to Goodreads!) | Title: Love and Other Unknown Variables Author: Shannon Lee Alexander Publisher: Entangled Teen Expected publication on: October 7th 2014 Genre: Contemporary Romance (YA) Author's blog Part of a series?: No Get a copy: Amazon I Barnes & Noble A review copy of Love and Other Unknown Variables was kindly provided via NetGalley -thank you, Entangled Teen!- at my request to review this book. My review is written in my honest opinion and is uninfluenced by anyone. |
The future has never seemed very kind to Charlotte Finch, so she’s counting on the present. She’s not impressed by the strange boy at the donut shop—until she learns he’s a student at Brighton where her sister has just taken a job as the English teacher. With her encouragement, Charlie orchestrates the most effective prank campaign in Brighton history. But, in doing so, he puts his own future in jeopardy.
By the time he learns she's ill—and that the pranks were a way to distract Ms. Finch from Charlotte’s illness—Charlotte’s gravitational pull is too great to overcome. Soon he must choose between the familiar formulas he’s always relied on or the girl he’s falling for (at far more than 32 feet per second squared).
t h e b e g i n n i n g
The pacing was slow, to the point where sometimes, I had to backtrack because I'd missed something I skipped over -but it only happened a few times. I enjoyed how Charlotte was introduced to us right at the beginning, with Charlie telling us how many failed dates he had encountered before. Charlie is like this soft-hearted and (really) geeky math kid while Charlotte is all art and beautiful and art and laughter and...art. Shannon managed to picture Charlotte as this mysterious, radiant, artsy girl which Charlie falls in love with without making her sound too typical.
t h e m i d d l e
Over the course of the school year, shit went down. A lot of pranks were pulled on Ms. Finch to which she deflected, although not unpainstakingly. The pranks were enjoyable, some which I even appraised for the math dorks not being just...well, math dorks. A lot of them made me laugh out loud, and some made me grimace. But I can say one of the best things about this book is the pranks.
Shannon makes this book so special by making us feel that all the things that happened in the story are not just arbitrary. They start out small at first but slowly you realize how this all plays out in the story. That was what happened with Mrs. Dimwitt and her garden. I won't tell you anything except that you'll love her. Not instantly! Far from that. But it builds up in you and you just know it.
t h e e n d i n g (AKA WHERE THINGS BLOW UP)
I think, hands down, that while the end was the worst part of the story, in a way it was also the best part. I read how the characters came to be more entertwined in one another's lives and how great an impact they had on each other. I particularly liked how Shannon didn't just leave us hanging there at the end. She decided that she still had business to do and wrapped up the ending nicely. I wouldn't say it was a job well done, but it was great when she wrote how the characters dealt with the choices and hard happenings in their life, while leaving a sense of possibility at the end for the reader to imagine what will happen to the remaining characters afterward.
- Fans of TFiOS. Definitely.
- This book inspired me a lot, so...readers who're looking for uplifting stories, I recommend this book!