First Comes Love

First Comes Love by Katie Kacvinsky
4/5 stars
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012
198 pages
YA Contemporary

Source: Received an ARC from Amazon Vine in exchange for an honest review.

I read this author's debut Awaken and ended up really disliking the romance. Thus a book focused on romance may not have been the wisest read for me. But contemporary YA is my genre so I wanted to give her another try. It also helped that this was short-I figured it would be a nice, quick Saturday afternoon read :)

It was a very fast read and I actually really enjoyed myself. This is partly because it is told in alternating perspectives between the boy and the girl-I love the chance to get in to multiple characters' heads and see how they view each other. In this case, we have Gray, frozen in time after a horrific event and Dylan, the free-spirited girl who impulsively acts and blows with the wind. Together they experience a variety of firsts and build a deep relationship.

We are introduced to Dylan through Gray's perspective first. He sees a girl seemingly oblivious to the heat of Phoenix who is unable to sit still and is without the constraints that so many of us feel in society. Dylan meanwhile sees someone with hidden depths and decides to befriend him. She is especially instrumental in challenging him and helping him move on with his life.

Probably my big difficulty though was in understanding Dylan's point of view. She doesn't want to be tied down. She thinks it is great to travel without a plan and she wants to go everywhere and try everything. I'm much more like Gray, more tied to a place and people. Thus the later chapters when she succumbs to the lure of adventure while Gray longs for her to stay were hard for me. I agree that they are both very young (probably about eighteen or nineteen, high school graduates, making this book technically New Adult, I guess) and I don't want Dylan to give up herself and just wither away with Gray. But I am a more settled person so I also kind of didn't understand why she wouldn't want that. It's a very personal feeling.  Also I tend to think of Dylan as a boy's name so I had to keep reminding myself that she was female.

Overall: A fine entry to the YA romantic contemporary subgenre; recommended for those who are already fans. Not necessarily for paranormal readers.

Cover: It's very plain: just the faces and the dark background. I like a cover with a bit more going on although it does clearly signal romance. I don't think you'd pick this up and expect a thriller.

Awaken

Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011
309 pages
YA; Dystopia
3.5/5 stars

Source: Received a free e-galley via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I started out really enjoying this book.  Maddie seemed like a cool independent girl.  I was intrigued by her family life and her obvious intelligence and rebellious strike.

Interestingly the setting is 2060, less than fifty years from now.  There are many similarities in terms of technology but the big change is scope as people barely leave their houses, instead fulfilling their desires through technology and specially delivered food to their houses.  However I wonder about relationships.  People still seem to value marriage and I believe a courtship can be conducted through email and such but how do they have a married life when people can barely communicate in person?  And why does Maddie play soccer in real-life with an actual friend (who basically disappears from the plot once she hooks up with the guy) instead of just online?

The main problem, for me though, was the romance.

Have you ever heard that women either pick a guy who's like their father or is the exact opposite? Well, Maddie kind of follows that, falling for a distant, fanatical, controlling guy whose main distinctions from her father are that he fights against the Digital School that her father created and he's better at acting like he cares about her.  Justin is also very lecture-y, which is a trait I thought I could tolerate but it turns out that only Mr. Knightley may lecture his lady-love; all others should cease.

Their relationship began when Justin  invested three years in searching for the person who had hacked into her dad's computer and aided Digital School protestors.  Once he found her, he and his friends spent a lot of time attempting to win Maddie over to their side. Maybe they genuinely do like her (now) but their relationship was founded on lies. The result is that I normally want my books and series to end with a happy romantic attachment for the main character but in this case I would be happier if Justin ended up dumping Maddie once she could no longer help the cause.  She would be shattered but it would be fascinating and way different from most YA that I've read. 

Overall: Some interesting questions raised by this dystopia but it didn't make much of an impression on me.

Read for YA Debut Author Challenge and for e-book challenge.