Abandoned by Booklikes

All in all I really enjoyed this book. The only reason why I didn't give it 5 stars is that I empathized more with Mark's character than Kate's. Kate drove me around the bend since most of her story-line was about her being afraid for no good reason. I still enjoyed the book, but I was going oh for pete's sake for most of her sections. And some of the characters needed to be more developed than they were.

Mark and Kate are both high school seniors out about to celebrate the start of Pride Week in San Francisco. Mark is at a gay bar with his best friend Ryan and we see in a few short paragraphs he is hopelessly in love with Ryan. Ryan is fine with the infrequent making out, but is not in love with Mark. After Mark finally gets pushed by Ryan to do something out of character, he sees Kate also at the bar (they are both in the same calculus class) and instantly freaks out.

Kate has left her three friends after she bails at meeting a girl she thinks/knows she's in love with named Violet. Kate is scared that she won't be enough for Violet or vice versa, but still wants to be with her. Even though it's apparent she's blown her chance. After escaping to a bar, she happens to see Mark dancing on a bar.

However, once Mark and Kate meet face to face and actually talk, they realize they are both in the sorta same boat and end up going out to have an adventure of their own.

I liked the whole aspect of Mark and Kate abandoning their friends to go make a memorable night. I just wish the authors had clued the readers in earlier on what happened. The book skips ahead to Monday and we are just alerted to the fact that something awesome happened and now Kate has about 5 million new followers on Instagram for her artwork and everyone is "studying" Mark.

Some of the secondary characters did irk me after a while though. For example, I am going to say that the character of Violet was just a manic pixie girl. She was in a circus, says all of these wise things, and is merely there to prop up the heroine (Kate) though by all rights she should have dumped her butt and went about her business.

Kate's best friend was all over the place. I can see why she was upset that Kate had seemingly changed her name over night from Katie to Kate. But she seemed focused on belittling her throughout the book. And she was way too angry and put her hands on Mark for me to like her that much. She was upset that Kate had made a new friend. But then made really nasty remarks about them running off and getting married. I think it would have been more realistic for this friendship to be at an end, but Kate keeps dithering about that.

I did not buy the character of Ryan did not realize that Mark was in love with him or at least had feelings for him. In fact I felt really bad for Mark and once again wanted to know who are these characters who keep exes in their life? When I break up with someone I don't keep in touch. Heck even when it's mutual I don't want to talk to you.

Some of the other characters needed to be developed a bit more (the two girls who seemed to be around just to make out with each other. The parents needed a bit more added to them too so they didn't just feel like cardboard figures that are there to cheer on their kids decisions.

I thought the writing was very authentic. I know so many teenagers who talk and act like this. Of course I would want to scream for an hour straight to be around people who don't have their act together (i.e. Kate not showing up for her art opening and standing up Violet again because she's scared to move forward in her life).

The flow really works and the book alternates between Mark and Kate's chapter.

The setting of San Francisco seems warm and all embracing of the GLBT lifestyle and after events such as the Orlando shooting, I can see why many readers would flock to a book like this. I also love that the authors throw it in there that some of their friends when they came out did not receive a loving reception by their family. In fact in one case, Kate and her friends think of their friend who was shipped out of school and sent far away when his parents found out he was gay and had a boyfriend.

I thought the ending was very sweet and perfectly captured the nervousness of kids about to graduate and go out into the world as adults. And it shows how scary it is to know that you have to go out there without your best friends by your side every step of the way.