Friday, August 24, 2012

Ditched: A Love Story by Robin Mellom




“Awesome. I was a jealous lunatic...and I wasn't alone. Touchdown!” 

The Blurb:


THERE'S A GIRL.
Justina Griffith was never the girl who dreamed of going to prom. Designer dresses and strappy heels? Not her thing. That said, she never expected her best friend, Ian Clark, to ask her.

AND THERE'S A BOY.
Ian, who always passed her the baseball bat, handle first.
Ian, who knew exactly when she needed red licorice.
Ian, who promised her the most amazing night at prom.

THEN THERE'S A DITCH.
But when Justina is ditched, figuratively and literally, she must piece together--stain-by-stain on her thrift store dress--exactly how she ended up dateless...with only the help of some opinionated ladies at the 7-Eleven.

To get the whole story, Justina will have to face the boy who ditched her. Can losing out at her prom ultimately lead to finding true love?


From: Goodreads

IMO:

I like the back-and-forth, non-linear style of this story. Though it's not what I usually prefer but I'm intrigued with stories that start at the end and then spend the entire novel explaining how things concluded that way. Another interesting thing is that the chapters where Justina is explaining the night before started because she was explaining how she got the different stains in her prom dress. Each stain tells a story and accounts for her ending up in a ditch without her phone, totally worse for wear and ditched by her friend and prom date, Ian. Kinda clever right?

The book is also fun. As Justina continues to figure out and tell Gilda and Donna what happened the other night, I find myself glued to her story too. Why did Ian really ditch her? How can he do that? What really happened during their prom night? The answers are slowly revealed and it appears that prom night has been absolutely crazy. 

The minor characters are also likable. Gilda and Donna are good listeners. The Mikes and their dates are funny and someone Justina didn't imagine she would get close too but did. A "real" villain (which is actually translates to bitchy girl) is actually not present. The author just would like as to think that it is Allyson Moore but I think she's not really.

However, I think the weakest link in this story and the reason why I cannot like it more, is the protagonist herself: Justina Griffith. She's not the worst female lead I've seen but she's close. Although I'm interested in her story, I can't quite make myself empathize with her. There's just so many things wrong with her personality. She's too easy to jump on conclusions, she's too negative and pessimistic, she's a hypocrite and she's nasty! Wishing to throw a jar of herpes to a girl because your jealousy is eating you inside? Seriously. Grow up. Too bad Ian is seldom featured in this story so we didn't really get to know him well, but he seemed nice enough and I kinda feel bad that she's going to end up with a girl like Justina. 

Conclusion:

Let me break it down into two:

Pros - I like the way the story was told. I think the use of stains was very clever and I enjoyed it.

Cons - I dislike the main character. 'Nuff said.


C


*pic from Goodreads



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