Published 4 May 2006
At the start of her senior year, Sara wants two things: to get into a top college and to find true love. Tobey also wants two things in his senior year: to win Battle of the Bands and to make Sara fall in love with him. A popular jock named Dave, though, moves in on Sara first. But Tobey's quirky wit and big blue eyes are hard for Sara to ignore. Plus, he gets the little things that matter to her - like why she loves the Lloyd Dobler boom-box scene in the movie Say Anything....Can a slacker rock-star wanna be win the heart of a pretty class brain like Sara?
Sara is waiting for "it" to happen, for a smoking hot guy to come along and profess his love and his wanting a relationship that is "something real". Then charming, gorgeous, all round nice guy Dave comes along. He's everything Sara could ever want, maybe he's "the one". Or maybe not, since he's quite superficial, doesn't make her feel special, and seems to reside in boring town, aka, his personality. Plus, all he wants to do is have some horizontal fun of the naked kind. The kind of guy who looks perfect on paper, but when your presented with the real thing, you feel a bit, meh?!
But, then there's Tobey, the quirky musician who is determined to get to know Sara, and for her to get to know him. Through the dual narration, you hear his thoughts, his worries, and this incessant attraction to Sara, that neither of them can understand. Maybe it's because they're both waiting for "it" to happen. Much flirting ensues etc etc and Sara and Tobey eventually get together, they are a seemingly perfect couple, but does finding "it" mean everything else will fade away to background noise?
Okay, so its no big revelation that I love books told from dual perspectives. Maybe it's because I hate the unknown and am a bit of a control freak? Maybe I want to get inside a boys head? Whatever, I love it. The narrative of the story did take me a while to get drawn into, even though it was my preferred style, but once I got into the story and connected to the characters, I found it easier to get sucked into the story. Though, can I just say that the whole "smart girl gets together with hot jock" story line is getting a little old, and this isn't one of those books that manages to pull it off perfectly. Maybe this was the authors intention, maybe she made Dave as a character so unrelatable and unlikable to show us as readers why he wasn't supposed to be with Sara. Either way, the beginning storyline in which Dave was up front and centre didn't float my boat.
I will give Colasanti credit where credit is due, Tobey's voice as a character was mesmerising. I loved how she made him likeable, real and most of all funny. Having been around my fair share of teenage boys, I loved that the amount of times they actually think about doing "the naughties" was represented, because as we all know, teenage boys think about sex like once every seven seconds. The scenes where he was envisioning sexual scenarios made me laugh out loud at their extremity and vulgarity, because thats how I can see actual boys thinking, like a mini pornographic movie playing in their head, only to be acted out in their wildest dreams. As much as I found this hilarious, I do fear that many will see this as objectification of women.
This book made me happy. Very happy. It made me giggle and laugh and wonder if grown up men have these inane thoughts running through their head, because if they do, that is just too funny. This book won't blow you away with it's plotline and characters, but it will sure make you feel good.
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