Review: 99 Days - Katie Cotugno

99 Days
Katie Cotugno
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Goodreads 

I wanted so much to like this book. 99 Days is about a girl named Molly Barlow, who sounds like she should've been an American Girl Doll. Molly Barlow, as much as I tried to like her and see past any mistakes its clear that she's made, was literally impossible to like as a character. Genuinely. I'm not usually one to dislike unsympathetic protagonists because I think they're interesting to read about, but I just wanted to grab Molly by the shoulders and shake her repeatedly until she could figure her life out. Seriously, this girl just truly took a lot out of me.

You might be able to tell from the cover of this book that this is a ~romance~. Insert main love interests here: Gabe, older brother to other main love interest, Patrick. Patrick is the twin of Julia, who was Molly's best friend growing up. Then there's Patrick's girlfriend who plays the minimal role of someone who tries to befriend her boyfriend's cheating ex-girlfriend only to find out that surprise, she's a horrible person. Sorry, still a little salty about Molly. Anyway, as I just mentioned, Molly cheated on her first boyfriend and love of her teenage life Patrick with his older brother Gabe. Everyone finds out that she slept with Gabe and she basically runs away to another high school until the summer before college, when she has to live in her hometown. She's welcomed back with trash talk, surprise again.

So she gets a job and starts her relationship with Gabe (that couldn't be a problem right?) I just don't understand why Molly was so thirsty as to get involved with this guy again knowing it would cause her problems. But whatever, let's go along witht this because plot. Anyway, I really hate Molly because she never feels bad about hurting Patrick, she just wants to get back in good with his family and dates Gabe to do that (that's what I feel, anyway).

I thought this book would be a lot like The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han, which is a fantastic series that also revolves around two brothers and a girl. However, it had some deep parts and I didn't wind up hating any of the characters, because there was balance to how truly immoral and annoying they were. I'm mentioning this now because I want to make it clear: tabboo books of any sort, cheating, scandal, what have you, I like them all when they are written in ways that acknowledge the wrongdoing and attempt to salavge the remains of what is left. I didn't like this because there was no real character development. Molly was the exact same character at the beginning as she was at the end, and so was literally every character. No one changed or grew at all, more people just made more bad choices so that Molly could somehow feel absolved of hers.

Maybe you'll love this book, I don't know. It was certainly enagaging but to me, in a character driven story like this one (with mostly conversations and not a whole lot of plot) there needs to be character development. Something to hold on to. This book didn't have that, but it was certainly good at drawing me in and keeping me enticed until the end of the book. I'd like to read more from this author, and see if the brother-brother plot just didn't work for her. I think her writing could totally shine in another piece!

- Amrutha

What are some love triangle romances you've read & enjoyed?

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