Review: Every Reason We Shouldn't

Every Reason We Shouldn't by Sara Fujimara
Grade: C
An e-galley was provided by Macmillan via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: Fifteen-year-old, biracial figure skater Olivia Kennedy’s Olympic dreams have ended. She's bitter, but enjoying life as a regular teenager instead of an athlete... until Jonah Choi starts training at her family's struggling rink. Jonah's driven, talented, going for the Olympics in speed skating, completely annoying… and totally gorgeous. Between teasing Jonah, helping her best friend try out for roller derby, figuring out life as a normal teen and keeping the family business running, Olivia's got her hands full. But will rivalry bring her closer to Jonah, or drive them apart?

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The two sports I show up for are figure skating and gymnastics. For some reason, I thought this book had ice dancing (it's pairs skating and speed skating actually), so it was definitely on my hope-I-love-it list. However, I just couldn't connect with the story.
Every Reason We Shouldn't is relatively short for YA these days, at only 256 pages. But I felt like every chapter dragged by and like I wasn't actually enjoying the characters or plot. Some characters, like Olivia's mom, didn't feel present enough. I also felt like a lot of time was spent at the rink but not enough time was actually spent on the skating. It sometimes felt like Olivia just went from place to place but didn't do a lot of active plot things at those places. I struggled with her and Jonah as a ship; they didn't have quite enough chemistry for me. I also found myself annoyed with Jonah's parents, whenever they appeared on the page.

The Verdict: Didn't do enough with its potential.

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Will I be adding this book to my library?: Sadly, no.