From What I Remember by Stacey Kramer and Valerie Thomas

This is a difficult book to review. On the one hand, I did enjoy reading it. On the other hand, I am fully aware it's a pile of cliched fluff.

Now don't get me wrong, From What I Remember is very good cliched fluff. It's light, it's enjoyable but there are some serious topics covered here. The problem is, they are covered in a similar matter to how a romantic comedy would cover them. Also, everything short of a teen pregnancy/drug addiction is covered which makes it feel a bit overly packed at times.

From What I Remember is the tale of a drunken day in Mexico told from the POV of five different people. Surprisingly this is done quite well although aside from the chapters told by Kylie and Max, none of the others are essentially necessary. The ones from Jake's POV add a fair bit to the story but you could remove Will and Lily's chapters quite easily without losing any of the plot. This would be fine if they were strong enough characters to warrant their presence but sadly this isn't the case. Will is very little more than a gay stereotype, overly flamboyant and obsessed with improving Kylie's life. He's not as bad as some cases since he does get his own romance story but it's still pretty painful to read at times. Lily is another stereotype, the rich bitch girl. I'm most disappointed with the way she was handled to be honest. Seeing the story from her POV could have allowed for some real depth and while she is given a serious problem to deal with, she ultimately remains shallow and flat.

Good things about this book-Kylie was very likeable, Max less so (again, he remained somewhat of a jock stereotype, even at the end). There was a lot going on here so you're not likely to get bored. I liked the structuring mechanism of starting each chapter with a movie quote and Will and Kylie's exchanges did seem pretty realistic most of the time. The writing style isn't bad either, and I liked how the story continued a little beyond the happy 'boy-gets-girl' ending to show us what happens next.

On the whole, From What I Remember is no great work of literature. It's a fun book though and definitely worth reading. In terms of YA fluff, I'd say it's above the rest.

Overall Score:

.5