Recent Posts

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

*Grabby Hands* Release & Review - Cherry by Lindsey Rosin

Title: Cherry 
Author: Lindsey Rosin
Publication date: August 16th 2016
Category/Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Publisher: Simon Pulse
In this honest, frank, and funny debut novel, four best friends make a pact during their senior year of high school to lose their virginities—and end up finding friendship, love, and self-discovery along the way.

To be honest, the sex pact wasn’t always part of the plan.

Layla started it. She announced it super casually to the rest of the girls between bites of frozen yogurt, as if it was just simply another addition to her massive, ever-evolving To Do List. She is determined to have sex for the first time before the end of high school. Initially, the rest of the crew is scandalized, but, once they all admit to wanting to lose their v-cards too, they embark on a quest to do the deed together... separately.

Layla’s got it in the bag. Her serious boyfriend, Logan, has been asking for months.

Alex has already done it. Or so she says.

Emma doesn’t know what the fuss is all about, but sure, she’ll give it a shot.

And Zoe, well, Zoe can’t even say the word without bursting into giggles.

Will everything go according to plan? Probably not. But at least the girls have each other every hilarious, heart-warming, cringe-inducing step of the way.

From debut author Lindsey Rosin, Cherry is a coming-of-age, laugh-out-loud tale of first times, last chances, and the enduring friendships that make it all worthwhile.
 

4 “Friendship goals” Stars

Books like this make me miss high school. Miss my group of friends and how life was so complicated, but so not-complicated and fun. How I used to spend hours hanging out with my girls and talking about everything. This book made me go back in time a bit and think about that, which is probably the main reason why I liked it so much.

“Cherry” was market as “American Pie” for girls (a super cool concept), but aside from the obvious sex talk, this book won me over because of the friendship between the main characters.

While I was expecting to get all four POVs, I thought they’d be in first person. It took me a while to get into the third person POV, but once I did, the story flowed.

Here we get to meet Layla, Alex, Emma and Zoe. These four have been friends for the longest time and are about to graduate high school. As their last adventure together, they agree on a sex pact: they’ll all have sex before graduation. The plot is as simple as that, and this is definitely a character-driven story, so if you’re not into that, you might find the pacing a bit slow.

I didn’t mind it (I normally don’t) because this was about getting to know these girls and experience the expectation, frustration and everything else involving a girl’s first time. The author delivered on that aspect, which is what I could’ve asked for in a book with this premise.

I can’t say I disliked any of the four girls, but I can’t also say I connected with all of them in the same level. Alex and Zoe were my favorite by far. There was just something about Alex that immediately got me. She wasn’t cocky, even though it’d be easy to portray her like that due to her beauty and status at school; she was slightly insecure, which made her likable and relatable; and she had great chemistry with the guys she was flirting with. Same goes for Zoe. I loved how quirky she was, and her friendship with Dylan gave me life even when they were both being stubborn. Sure I wasn’t the biggest fan of her reaction to Layla’s decision later on, but I still liked her enough to forgive her when Layla did.

Though “Cherry” was a story heavy on sex, I loved the way the girls treated it as something positive. Aside from that Layla-Zoe moment, the girls were really supportive of each other in every important aspect. There was no slut-shaming or jealousy or nasty feelings when they’d share their progress or big news. I loved how they sat at the local frozen yogurt place and talked about everything, and how a story about sex and romance still managed to keep such a solid friendship arc. Well done, Lindsey Rosin. Well done.

The only aspect I didn’t find all that believable was the lack of parental supervision. None of these girls seemed to have problems getting around their parents to have sex. I get that some parents work all day and all, but all four of them? That wasn’t all that believable.

Overall, this was a great book with a refreshing take on an important topic and a group of protagonists whose strong friendship made me miss those years when I was young, fun and free.  

*If you liked this review (or not), if you read the book (or not), come say hello and leave your comments bellow.

No comments: