Book Review: Maybe This Time by Kasie West

Contemporary romances are not what I am usually drawn to or even like to read for that matter, but for some reason, I’ve been in the mood to read contemporary romances that have a Hallmark-like air about them.

Summary. Teenage Sophie wants nothing more than to leave her small country town and go to design school in New York City. She saves up for it by working at a local flower shop that provides flower arrangements for annual events, and she wonders if she will ever leave her hometown. However, when she meets the gorgeous—yet superficial, she believes—Andrew, who happens to be the son of a famous caterer who also attends the events, she finds her plans on hold. Is New York really what she wants, or is there another path for her that includes him? This story covers nine months of events and the development of Sophie’s relationship with someone who she believes should be her foe instead of her friend.

Likes

• Quick read. I read this 350-page book in about 3 days, which is pretty fast for me. The simple language and fluent actions of the story helped me to finish it more swiftly.
• Simplicity of language. Sometimes it was a little too simple, considering how this was a teen romance, where the author used more teen-friendly language, but it was nice to have a story not too bogged down with description.
• Cute in places. While it is cheesy and has some cliché one-liners, it’s was nice to read a “proper” romantic comedy that leaves you with a “cute” feeling.

Dislikes

• Main character is a snob.  “…I thought I owed Andrew an apology, or at least a thank-you. I had offered him neither because, like always, his personality got in the way” (120). Sometimes I wanted to slap the protagonist because she was so rude to the love interest. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I am rude to guys due to pre-conceived notions about their personalities, but the level of her dislike lasted over their many meetings—many of which he was very gentlemanly towards her. I got to parts of the story where I wanted to shout at her, “get over yourself!” or “you can do better, Andrew!”.
• Relationship between best friend and love-interest. They both get along—a little too well, I think. Their friendship is very flirty, which I do not think would constitute a purely platonic relationship in today’s teenage drama. It’s nice that the author wanted to make them “flirty friends”, so to speak, but the fact that it didn’t even bother the main character about how close they were made their relationship, and even the story, less believable.
• Amount of sarcasm. I get that teenagers speak fluently in sarcasm, but it sometimes got quite annoying. Let’s not enable our teenage readers with more of the same thing, please.

Conclusion. Even though this book had some cringe-worthy annoyances (this could be partly due to the fact that a 30-year-old is reading about a romance written for teens), it kept me reading and I am happy that I finished Sophie and Andrew’s story. It left me curious as to what other books Kasie West and other Deseret Book authors of teen romances like her have also written.