Name: Finding Mr. Brightside
ISBN: 9780805092578

Jay Clark

Growing up unaware of each other until their parents have a torrid affair that culminates in a devastating car accident, Abram and Juliette meet again a year later and embark on a life-changing relationship. By the author of The Edumacation of Jay Baker. Simultaneous eBook.

Finding Mr. Brightside

She didn’t expect her silver lining to be wearing gray sweatpants. Abram and Juliette know each other. They've lived down the street from each other their whole lives. But they don't really know each other—at least, not until Juliette's mom and Abram's dad have a torrid affair that culminates in a deadly car crash. Sharing the same subdivision is uncomfortable, to say the least. They don't speak. Fast-forward to the neighborhood pharmacy, a year later. Abram decides to say hello. Then he decides to invite Juliette to Taco Bell. To her surprise as well as his, she agrees. And the real love story begins. Finding Mr. Brightside is a contemporary young adult novel by Jay Clark. “Jay Clark, you just wrote one of my favorite YA books ever. Thank you!” —Jerry Spinelli, author of Stargirl “Clark’s characters are realistic and sympathetic. Readers will root for both of them to overcome their trauma and accept a future of happiness.” —VOYA “Clark (The Edumacation of Jay Baker) crafts a believably tentative relationship between these two damaged teens, their sharp-edged humor masking the pain that they can’t quite shake.” —Publishers Weekly “Though the problems the teens face are myriad, the story never bogs down.” —Booklist

Sophia De La Garza

WHERE DO I BEGIN WITH THIS REVIEW? 
Prepare for a very negative review. I'm just full on ranting. 

I don't think there is one good quality in this book (for me at least). Let's just get this review started. 

Summary: 
	Abram and Juliette haven’t talked since the car crash that killed Abram’s dad and Juliette’s mom, the crash also revealed the affair going on between their parents. A year later and Juliette and Abram run into each other at their local CVS and soon start to rekindle their friendship, which soon turns romantic. 

Writing: 
 ~ Didn’t make sense most of the time. The writing was all over the place and not in a wonderland way. 
 ~Lot of details and information were left out. It actually felt like I was only reading the second half of what could've been an amazing novel. 
~The writing was plain, even for a YA contemporary. The words and descriptions never pulled me in. 
~The dual POV worked with Clark's writing but still not as engaging as most dual POV's are. 


Characters:
Juliette: 
~She had character development but due to lack of information in the novel, couldn’t really see the depth of her development. She was under developed one chapter and then in the next chapter BOOM a new developed character had showed up, in which she still was majorly underdeveloped . 
~ Going along with her development, her issues throughout the novel never really get solved, Abram’s do but not hers. She has all these mental feelings and behaviours that are never really addressed in the book.
~ Overall Juliette was boring. She just seemed to be a character with no personality and I couldn't connect with her character at all. 

Abram: 
~ He was the better of the two and his chapters were much more enjoyable than Juliette's. However! 
The author doesn’t explain any of Abram's feelings for Juliette or how he developed them. They just are there and it goes with my opinion of only getting half a book. 

Plot:
~ This novel had such a boring plot line, despite the concept being such an emotion theme that could have had a super engaging and emotion driven plot. But no this plot was flat lined from the get go. 
~ Nothing exciting happens. AT ALL. They go to the beach for one weekend and that alone takes up half the novel. I nearly fell asleep reading this book and that rarely happens when I'm reading. 
~ To elaborate more on the whole "only having half the book" tangent I've been mentioning; I would have prefered if the author possibly included the car crash and everything that happened that led to the beginning of this novel. It would make the dual POV much more interesting and the plot would have been less boring if these aspects were included. 


Overall: 
~I'm giving this book a 1.5 stars and that is a stretch. I had so much hope for this book due to hearing such great things about it on Goodreads and from other book sites. But no, this was the most disappointing book I've read and honestly one of the worst YA contemporaries I've read. 

~ Sorry for such a negative review but I just couldn't stand this book. If you couldn't tell.

Finding Mr. Brightside

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