99 Days by Katie Cotugno
Grade: D
Release date: April 21, 2015
This ARC was provided by Read Between the Lynes in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: Day 1: Julia Donnelly eggs my house my first night back in Star Lake, and that’s how I know everyone still remembers everything—how I destroyed my relationship with Patrick the night everything happened with his brother, Gabe. How I wrecked their whole family. Now I’m serving out my summer like a jail sentence: Just ninety-nine days till I can leave for college, and be done.
Day 4: A nasty note on my windshield makes it clear Julia isn’t finished. I’m expecting a fight when someone taps me on the shoulder, but it’s just Gabe, home from college and actually happy to see me. “For what it’s worth, Molly Barlow,” he says, “I’m really glad you’re back.”
Day 12: Gabe got me to come to this party, and I’m actually having fun. I think he’s about to kiss me—and that’s when I see Patrick. My Patrick, who’s supposed to be clear across the country. My Patrick, who’s never going to forgive me.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: I knew going into 99 Days that it could go one of two ways. Either, I'd feel incredibly sympathetic for Molly or I would highly dislike her. I can't relate to her choices at all, but I hoped it would be the former option. Instead, I didn't like Molly Barlow at all. The first decision, the one that lead to everything, was pretty dumb but not as bad as people in Star Lake made it out to be. And as Gabe made it clear many times, he was just as much at fault as her. But then pretty much the entire book was one bad decision after another. I won't go into most of them, for the sake of spoilers, but I really didn't like Molly or Patrick. Patrick was controlling and seemed to expect Molly to never be her own person. Molly continually played the victim even when she made the worst choices. I liked Tess and was glad Molly didn't make her out to be a terrible person. Half the people in Star Lake were terrible and got away with way too much, particularly Julia. There were no redeeming characters. 99 Days was a fast read, but it left such a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. I couldn't believe so many people would make terrible choices and think there aren't going to be consequences.
Language was foul (way too many f-bombs for my liking). Romance was pretty much PG-13.
The Verdict: *sigh*
Will I be adding this book to my library?: No.
YES! I'm glad I was the only one that disliked Molly and Patrick! You'd think she would have learned from her mistakes the first time around.
ReplyDeleteGreat review!