ARC Review: Ask Again Later

by Liz Czukas
4/5 stars
HarperTeen, 2014
336 pages
YA Contemporary
Scheduled to release March 4

Source: Received an e-ARC from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

I love that there's a tiara on the cover-the summary already made this book seem like a Stephanie one with its main character Heart flipping a coin to decide who should be her prom date but the tiara is really icing on the cake. Her original plans were to go with a big group of friends for a no drama prom. However two last minute invites have her reconsidering this. She's a bit of a people pleaser so she wants to keep everyone in her life happy. Since consulting a Magic Eight Ball is unsuccessful, she turns to flipping a coin. If the coin lands heads, she will go with her jock brother's recently dumped teammate Troy. If the coin lands tails, she will go with fellow theater geek Phil. As Heart ponders her options, she also struggles with her friend Schroeder's pushes to stay with her original crew that leads Heart to question her long-standing policy of no-dating.

One of my favorite trends in YA is playing around with ideas of fate and what will happen if you take different paths at crucial moments (see Pivot Point and Just Like Fate for other books that have their own take on this concept.) It's always interesting to see how these choices impact the eventual outcome. For Heart, she has an incredibly eventful prom no matter which option is chosen (way more happens than happened at my prom for example!) It makes for an exciting easy to read book, perfect for lovers of contemporary.

Something I enjoyed seeing was how similar her experiences ended up being even though she was in the company of different people. For example, her beautiful dress gets destroyed in both scenarios but for different reasons and with slightly different solutions. It was all these little things that pleased me and I liked seeing Czukas' attention to every little detail.

Furthermore this book is pretty funny. Heart's prom is eventful as mentioned and hilarious albeit embarrassing. Therefore while it would have sucked for most of these things to happen to you in real life, it's pretty easy to laugh at the outlandishness while reading. Heart herself has a and one of my favorite jokes is between Heart and Schroeder. She hates her name, that was bestowed upon her by her teenager mother before she ran off and he often calls her by other organs such as "Kidney" or "Pancreas." Meanwhile she calls him Schroeder, not because it is his real name, which is actually Chase, but because he is blond and plays piano. Their relationship has some frustrating moments but is fairly predictable.

Overall: If you like YA contemporary that takes place over the course of one crazy night and has attitude to spare, you'll be in for a delight with this book!