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Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Review: Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski

Book: Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski
Series: No
Released: March 11, 2014
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 336 (ebook)
Stars: 1.5 stars


*I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an open and honest review*

Don't Even Think About It

From Goodreads:
 Contemporary teen fiction with romance, secrets, scandals, and ESP from the author of Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn't Have).
We weren't always like this. We used to be average New York City high school sophomores. Until our homeroom went for flu shots. We were prepared for some side effects. Maybe a headache. Maybe a sore arm. We definitely didn't expect to get telepathic powers. But suddenly we could hear what everyone was thinking. Our friends. Our parents. Our crushes. Now we all know that Tess is in love with her best friend, Teddy. That Mackenzie cheated on Cooper. That, um, Nurse Carmichael used to be a stripper.

Since we've kept our freakish skill a secret, we can sit next to the class brainiac and ace our tests. We can dump our boyfriends right before they dump us. We know what our friends really think of our jeans, our breath, our new bangs. We always know what's coming. Some of us will thrive. Some of us will crack. None of us will ever be the same.

So stop obsessing about your ex. We're always listening.

Snore. I was so bored with this book. Especially the beginning. It was just so vague. It kept alluding to SOMETHING that happened, but it seemed like it took forever to get there. Not that I'm opposed to mystery and intrigue, but it felt like every other page ended with a sentence that was basically saying "I'll tell you more later, I can't be bothered to tell you anything now."
There are some girls. And some guys. They have some names. Like Mackenize and Tess and a boy named Cooper. They live in New York and are quasi-rich. That's about all I remember. There were a lot of characters discussed and named. Honestly they pretty much all ran together.

So the high school students are all in the same homeroom. They develop the power to read minds. From a FLU SHOT. Then one of the girls (Mackenzie maybe?) freaks out because now her boyfriend (Cooper) will find out she cheated on him last summer. And that's pretty much the main part of the story. There may have been a few other minor things that happened, but yeah, that's about it.
So here's the deal. I know I should review the book how it was written, not review it over what I wanted to or thought should happen. But then the review would pretty much be blank, because NOTHING happened. There were a couple of minor conflicts, but nothing really worth noting. The worst thing that happened really didn't end up being that big of an issue. I feel like it was such a missed opportunity to really explore what people hide. Maybe something worse than a girl cheated on her boyfriend. Something like one of the girls had an eating disorder that no one knew about. Or one of the guys had been abused and had never told anyone. A REAL secret. But it was all so fluffy and had very little substance. Granted this is the first book I've read of Mlynowski's so maybe she tends to keeps things lighter? I don't know.

Also causing a problem was there were so many people. Maybe had the story focused on two or maybe even three, it would have had more of an impact. But as it was, they all kinda mixed together and I didn't really connect with any one particular character.
I probably would not rec this to anyone. In case you haven't figured that out by the rest of the review.
Cool Story Bro

3 comments:

  1. Ha! Your review cracks me up! Yeah, I can see where this one would be annoying since the big secret isn't a major one. (Seriously? A teenage guy cheating on his girlfriend? Unheard of!) And definitely seems hard to enjoy when there are so many characters to keep track of. Great review, though!

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  2. Bummer! I hate wasting time on a book I don't love. I had looked into this when I saw the NG e-mail as well but just didn't feel like it was going to be up my alley of the kinds of books I like to read. Looks like I was probably right!

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  3. I felt the same way about this book — I was just kind of bored. And there were WAY too many characters. Glad I wasn't the only one that was disappointed.

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