Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Page Count: 304 pages, Hardcover
Date Published: November 13th 2012
Find it on Goodreads: Meant to Be
Source: Purchased
Meant to be or not meant to be . . . that is the question.
It's one thing to fall head over heels into a puddle of hazelnut coffee, and quite another to fall for the—gasp—wrong guy. Straight-A junior Julia may be accident prone, but she's queen of following rules and being prepared. That's why she keeps a pencil sharpener in her purse and a pocket Shakespeare in her, well, pocket. And that's also why she's chosen Mark Bixford, her childhood crush, as her MTB ("meant to be").
But this spring break, Julia's rules are about to get defenestrated (SAT word: to be thrown from a window) when she's partnered with her personal nemesis, class-clown Jason, on a school trip to London. After one wild party, Julia starts receiving romantic texts . . . from an unknown number! Jason promises to help discover the identity of her mysterious new suitor if she agrees to break a few rules along the way. And thus begins a wild goose chase through London, leading Julia closer and closer to the biggest surprise of all: true love.
I was extremely excited for this book when I heard about it, as I get excited about any book set in London, but I was sadly disappointed. I didn't hate it, but didn't love it.
Meant to Be was a really quick read for me and sadly that wasn't a good thing. It was pretty predictable from the start and not what I was expecting. Actually, while I knew it was probably going to be cheesy, I don't know what I was thinking it would be like! Just not this! And while I didn't NOT like this book, it definitely was not my favourite and that kind of sucks because I was so excited about it!
One of my main reasons for not liking this book as much as I wanted was the main character, Julia. I found her to be extremely annoying and seriously, the fact that she was still in love with a guy that she hadn't seen or spoken to in ten years? Ridiculous. While some of the things she said and did were relatable, like bringing her pocket Shakespeare everywhere, there were others that I found seriously irritating and I just couldn't truly connect with Julia.
Then there was Jason and from the very beginning, I predicted what was going to happen. There was just no big twist that shocked me and I hate it when a book falls flat. There were definitely a few parts that I really enjoyed, like when Jason took Julia to the skate area with all of the graffiti. That was really cute and I loved all of the Beatles references in the book! And the Shakespeare! But there were also decisions that Julia made that I didn't understand at all and Jason was kind of off and on for me.
I'm not too sure if I do recommend this.... It was okay I guess. Really fluffy, pretty predictable, but with neat references and I adored the fact that it was set in London.
.5Happy reading!
~Kristy
Aw, I'm sorry you didn't enjoy this one more. I hate when I leave a book disappointed. But, it's sitting on my shelf, so I"ll enter cautiously. :)
ReplyDeleteBrandy @ A Little of the Book Life
Will have to check this one out but dive into it not expecting too much! Thanks for sharing your review :)
ReplyDeletehttp://demitrialunetta.blogspot.com
I don't read a lot of contemporary romance books so I didn't expect to like this as much as I did. I had it figured out from the start about the texts just wasn't sure how the person was pulling it off. I could relate to Julia and her situation to a certain extent so that is probably why the book appealed to me. It's a sweet, fluffy romance. A good beach read in my opinion. Sorry you didn't like it. It's always disappointing to finish a book that you felt was just okay. I just finished a trilogy that was okay and I wondered why I bothered reading all of them.
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