moonylovesstars's reviews
204 reviews

In 14 pages I decided to DNF this book for two reasons.

One. The seemingly fat-phobic remarks towards Brian in the second chapter. Two fat-phobic remarks in the first 4 pages of the second chapter. Some people might not count it as being fat-phobic but it still is extremely rude and harsh to think something like that of someone.

 “Please. Those cargo pants are stuffed with Almond Joys, not grapefruit.” 
“At best, my pudgy stoner friend might float, but there’s no wat he’s going to exercise on his own.”

Like really? None of that was needed to explain Brian at all. If you wanted the character to be pudgy, just say it. You don’t have to add those remarks. All I got out of the main character, Matty Jones, is he’s an asshole. And I can’t deal with having a main character that is going to add snarky and asshole remarks like that.

Two. The way they went on to explain Miranda and Emily. 

How Emily is explained:
“Brian’s sister has their mom’s heart-shaped face with cheeks that dimple when she smiles; auburn hair she keeps in a ponytail most of the time; curves hidden under Levis and an Eagles sweatshirt. A few of us guys know she’s got a killer bod, but she’s constantly in motion.”

As you can guess which part makes me hate Matty more. If not I’ll tell you. “A few of us guys know she’s got a killer bod…” This one isn’t as bad, I’ll admit. But whenever someone says “killer bod” as a description for someone’s body, I feel sick. I would not want to be told I have a killer bod. But maybe that’s because I’m a women and he is a man. And again, I don’t think you’d be thinking of your crushes brother that way unless he’s a terrible person, and all that I could see from Brian in the 14 pages I got through in this book, is he loves weed, he’s pudgy, Matty and Brian have been friends since they were little, he has a sister, he has bad grades, and his dad has diabetes 

How Miranda is described:
“She’s far out of Brian’s league, she might as well be on another planet. I mean, she’s a lifeguard! Totally in shape, one of the most popular girls in school since kindergarten, stellar grades. Her shiny black hair—let’s call it sleek—and high cheek-bones make her more like a model and less like a real person.”

(For more context, Miranda is a girl Brian is crushing on.) Way to have some faith in your “friend”. I honestly don’t know how Matty even has a friend, and this is just his thoughts so I can’t imagine what he says, unless he somehow has a filter between his brain and his mouth. Now, you can probably guess what I don’t like about this. The first sentences that lead into “Her shiny black hair…”. Now this one can count into number one. Not only is Matty saying he can’t get the girl he is crushing on because he is out of shape, unpopular, and has bad grades, astounds me. Not every girl looks for the fit bod, popular, grade A student. And Matty is once again, railing on his friend. Practically bullying Brian in his thoughts. 

If this is how teen boys think, I would rather blow my brains out then get near them. But I doubt that most teenage boys think this way. Especially when it comes to their friends. And if teenage boys think this way around girls, I hope to god that they know a lot of girls would hate if they thought of them only as having curves and a fit bod and that their crush or someone else was out of their league. Or maybe that’s just how I think. I should be able to decide for myself who is in or out of my league, who I want to date or who I don’t want to date, if I date them for personality or looks. And I definitely wouldn’t want someone judging my boyfriend or someone who has a crush on me for being out of my league. 

The first chapter was fine, I done understand how you can’t care if your dad left, but then again we all react differently and I don’t know if something happened between the two as I DNF the book at 14 pages. I just can’t read with someone thinking that way, I’m sorry. And this review may seem harsh but it’s my honest opinion.

I think this book has great messages and had great potential. But it felt so bare, dry and bland to me. The romance wasn’t great, which I can understand because I’d say this is more of a dystopian, but romance should be a bigger part and could have been so much better as it is (or should be) a big part of the picture. We start off with the Match, and it’s mentioned again and again. Yet the romance was dry and bland to me. The dystopian part was the only good thing to me, yet even with that it got bland at times.

 I would say if you like The Hunger Games and The Giver, you should read this, but then again I can’t even tell if they would. (I didn’t like The Giver, I did like The Hunger Games though.)

Maybe it’s just that their wasn’t much action, and I get it, they are teens. But even then there is still more they could have done. It just wasn’t for me. I love the messages it holds, and the idea of this whole book could have been so could, but it just didn’t cut it for me.