My Life After NowAuthor's website | Goodreads
by Jessica Verdi
Genre: Young Adult - Contemporary
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Published: April 2, 2013
Source: Publisher
Lucy just had the worst week ever. Seriously, mega bad. And suddenly, it's all too much—she wants out. Out of her house, out of her head, out of her life. She wants to be a whole new Lucy. So she does something the old Lucy would never dream of.
And now her life will never be the same. Now, how will she be able to have a boyfriend? What will she tell her friends? How will she face her family?
Now her life is completely different...every moment is a gift. Because now she might not have many moments left.
I couldn’t describe my feelings towards this book any better than saying
it was “pleasantly surprising.” Yes, I was anticipating it because of
the positive reviews I’ve been seeing, but I didn’t expect it to exceed
my expectations. It’s like when you rip open a present with something in
mind, but you completely get another item inside the box—in a very good
way. This was totally that. I became more engrossed in the story every
turn of the page.
The best word to describe Lucy’s character is realistic. She gets downed by life’s circumstances and is terribly affected by them, but she strives to bounce back every time. I really felt for her especially in the beginning of the book. She seemed to have no one—everybody and everything from her past all suddenly lost—in her life anymore, and the emotion hit me like we had two souls woven together. Her character also developed greatly. I was like watching a soap and constantly doing fist pumps because the MC was making better and better decisions as the story progressed.
I liked Evan—he’s really an admirable love interest—but like my issue with other books, I was looking for more character. Again, this, I think, is because of lack of exposure throughout the novel. Still, he’s on my list of “thumbs-up-lead-guys”.
Another, the supporting characters were absolutely great! I hate it when a character appears in one scene and then totally disappears after that—but thankfully this wasn’t the case with My Life After Now. They played their roles well and contributed fairly (if not extremely) to the story.
The plot was so gooood. More than the romance, I was hooked unexpectedly by all the drama going on. Despite the dwindle in the amount of romance, I found myself turning each page more eagerly than the previous. I just thought that the pacing in the beginning was particularly fast, but from that point it only got better.
And, most importantly, this book was an eye-opener. The reality that the people you thought you knew could be so cruel and indifferent to you in a blink of an eye was really disturbing. I learned A LOT of things about the certain sensitive issues discussed in the book. Jessica Verdi wasn’t afraid to tackle these things, and I do admire her for that.
Raw, thought-provoking and real—you, guys, need to read this book now.
THE NUB AND GIST: 4.5 STARS
