Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid

Title: Never Always Sometimes

Author: Adi Alsaid

Publisher: HarlequinTEEN

Release Date: August 4, 2015

Source: From Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

Never date your best friend

Always be original

Sometimes rules are meant to be broken

Best friends Dave and Julia were determined to never be cliché high school kids—the ones who sit at the same lunch table every day, dissecting the drama from homeroom and plotting their campaigns for prom king and queen. They even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they’d never, ever do in high school.

Some of the rules have been easy to follow, like #5, never die your hair a color of the rainbow, or #7, never hook up with a teacher. But Dave has a secret: he’s broken rule #8, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school. It’s either that or break rule #10, never date your best friend. Dave has loved Julia for as long as he can remember.

Julia is beautiful, wild and impetuous. So when she suggests they do every Never on the list, Dave is happy to play along. He even dyes his hair an unfortunate shade of green. It starts as a joke, but then a funny thing happens: Dave and Julia discover that by skipping the clichés, they’ve actually been missing out on high school. And maybe even on love.

Last year I really enjoyed Adi Alsaid’s debut, Let’s Get Lost. When I found out the premise for his newest book, Never Always Sometimes, it sounded like something that was totally up my alley. Though, it wasn’t quite what I had hoped it would be, I still found myself highly enjoying Never Always Sometimes.

Before starting high school, best friends Dave and Julia made a pact: they would avoid becoming those clichéd teenagers everyone else in high schools seemed to be. That’s how the Nevers list was born: a list of the ten things they both never to do in high school. Fast-Coward four years and Julia and Dave are close to graduating and have successfully avoided becoming clichés. When Dave finds the Nevers list after having forgotten about it, Julia suggests they complete the list. As they start crossing items of their list, Dave and Julia realize that by wanting to avoid clichés, they’ve missed out on a lot more than just a typical high school experience.

I am an absolute sucker for friendship stories, especially ones that are about friendships between a boy and a girl. It probably has to do with all through high school, and still today for that matter, my best friend is a guy. So whenever I hear of stories that feature that kind of friendship, I am all over them. That’s what initially drew me to Adi Alsaid’s Never Always Sometimes. And when I found out more about the story, I was only that much more interested in reading the book. It sounded like it had the potential to be such a fun story. And it was. While reading, I would often find myself laughing at Julia’s antics or appreciating the sweet friendship moments between Dave and Julia. What I had a little more trouble buying into was the romance. For a while, I was confused about who I was supposed to be rooting for: Dave and Julia or Dave and Gretchen. But by the end of the book, though I wasn’t entirely sold on how it happened, I understood what the author was trying to do. How he was trying to show that sometimes the person you think you should be with isn’t always the person who’s your best match. And that just because you love someone in a romantic way, doesn’t always mean that feeling will be reciprocated in the same way. And at more than one point in the story, there was a whole lot of confused feelings happening for both Dave and Julia.

Maybe it was because the first part of the story was from his perspective, but I felt like I got to know Dave really quickly and I just really got him. I understood how he felt about his best friend. How he would do pretty much anything just to see her happy, even if that at times that meant sacrificing some of his own happiness. But he was happy to do it. And even though I didn’t always agree with some of the decisions he made, I really liked Dave, and I understood his struggle. But because of the way the story was told, I feel like it took a while before I really got to know Julia. for the first half or so of the book, everything I knew about Julia was tainted by Dave’s feelings for her. I only really got to know her through how Dave saw her. So when I got to see this story from her perspective and get first hand information about who she was, I wasn’t sure how I felt about her for a long time. I saw her one way because of how Dave saw her, and then I realized that she was exactly who Dave saw her as, but she was also a completely different person. And though it may have taken me a bit to warm up to her, I really liked Julia. She was her own person and she wasn’t afraid of doing what she wanted, even if others didn’t always understand. But at the same time, she was someone who was constantly seeking the approval of the one person she couldn’t get it from. And that broke my heart at times. The one thing that’s for sure, is that I loved the friendship Dave and Julia had, even if at times it wasn’t easy.

Though it may not have been quite the story I had hoped it would be, I still really enjoyed Adi Alsaid’s Never Always Sometimes. If you’re looking for a story with a good mix of friendship and romance, you may want to check this one out.

Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid

Title: Let's Get Lost

Author: Adi Alsaid

Publisher: HarlequinTEEN

Release Date: July 29, 2014

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost.

Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashed into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.

There’s HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday—and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.

Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila’s own 4,268-miles journey that she discovers the most important truth—sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you’re looking for is to get lost along the way.

I remember when I first heard about Adi Alsaid’s Let’s Get Lost, I discovered it was a contemporary story with a road trip and I was sold. I knew I needed to read this book. And then it started getting a lot of really good buzz and that only heightened my desire to read this book. Now that I’ve read it, I can honestly say that Let’s Get Lost did not disappoint me. 

Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia all need a friend. In the moment when they need that friend the most, Leila barges into each of their respective life. She helps Hudson that there are different options for his future. When she meets Bree on the road, Leila helps her reconnect with her sister after she ran away. Leila and Elliot go on a quest to help him get his happy ending with the girl he’s in love with. And Leila shows Sonia that just because she lost her boyfriend, she didn’t lose her ability to love and she shouldn’t be scared of loving again. But no one really knows who Leila is. She’s just travelling across the country in the hopes of seeing the Northern Lights in Alaska. Maybe along the way, Leila will also discover what she’s looking for, even if it means getting lost first.

I was very excited to read Adi Alsaid’s debut, Let’s Get Lost. I mean, it’s a contemporary story set in summer and it has a road trip. What’s not to love? As it got closer to the release date, I started seeing the book everywhere (Side note: there was also a legit Let’s Get Lost car at BEA, it was pretty cool). Everyone I knew who was reading it seemed to be loving it and that only made me raise my expectations. So when I started reading, I’ll admit I was a little afraid of what I would find in the pages of the book. But I really shouldn’t have worried. Let’s Get Lost was definitely different, but it was the VERY GOOD kind of different. Reading this book, it almost feels like you’re reading four different short stories that have one common thread: Leila. Each of the sections of the books are very much about the four people Leila meets at different point during her trip. Each of those first four sections could very well stand on their own. They each have a clear start and finish. But they wouldn’t necessarily be the most satisfying of stories because each time you’re left wondering what happens to Leila. And that’s where that final section of the book comes in. That last section ties everything together beautifully. All those questions that I had asked myself, all those details that didn’t really seem like they fit, they were all explained. That’s what really made me love this story, the way all the pieces of the puzzle came together to give you a satisfying ending. And that’s all thanks to Leila.

Leila was a very interesting characters. As much as this is her story, as the reader you don’t really get to really know her until the last 50 or so pages of the book. For most of the story, you get to know Leila through Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia. Every thing I knew about Leila was based on those four people’s observations. In that sense, it painted a very interesting picture. Each of those people saw her differently but their was that common thread: Leila was the person who came into their lives when they all really needed a friend. And as varied as those glimpses of Leila were, I grew to like her a lot. Until I read her story, understood why she was taking this trip, and then  I found myself loving Leila. But I also liked the people she met along the way. Each one was so different. In hindsight, it felt like each one almost represented a different part of Leila. Sonia represented her desire to run away from her life. Sonia was the part of her that was afraid to move forward, while Elliot saw the hope for a happy ending. And Hudson was different, he was afraid of risking it all, something Leila didn’t seem so scared to do. And that’s what brought them together, even if there were some moments when it felt a little unlikely. But I still loved the way all these people came together and fit together.

Adi Alsaid’s Let’s Get Lost was an absolutely fantastic debut. This story was just so different but it completely worked and I loved reading every page of it. I honestly cannot wait to read more from Adi Alsaid.

Waiting on Wednesday (80)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill of Breaking the Spine where book bloggers devote a post to an upcoming book release they are particularly looking forward to reading.

THIS WEEK'S PICK:
LET'S GET LOST BY ADI ALSAID

Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost.

Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.

There's HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes ever Tuesday--and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.

Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth--sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.

I'm a sucker for a good road trip story and Let's Get Lost sounds like just that. Plus it's contemporary and we all know I'm a sucker for that too (and apparently that's all I'll be reading this spring/summer). This story sounds like it has so much potential and I can only hope that it can live up to what I have built it up to. Either way, I'm really looking forward to reading Let's Get Lost.

Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid will be published July 29, 2014 by Harlequin Teen.