99 Days by Katie Cotugno

It's been a fairly long time since I read a fluffy YA romantic contemporary. It's not my favourite genre but every once in a while (usually when I'm on holiday) I get the craving for some good old-fashioned fluff. This book however turned out to be a lot more interesting than your typical sweet romance.

The premise of 99 Days is that our main character Molly used to date a guy named Patrick until she cheated on him with his brother, Gabe. Now I don't like cheating stories which made Molly a little difficult to sympathise with, something which didn't get easier the more stupid her decisions became. Having been away from her hometown for a year, Molly must return for 99 days before she goes away to college and face the music. You see, Molly's affair was revealed when her mother wrote a best-selling book about it and as a result, everyone in the town hates her. The only person who is still nice to her is Gabe.

This is one of those books that is only fueled by poor decisions and characters behaving stupidly. Molly is the worst offender and she gets stuck in a love triangle between two brothers. I found Patrick deeply unlikable and could not understand Molly's attraction to him at all, especially when Gabe was so sweet and his 'offences' in their relationship so minor. I thought I was going to hate this book but the strong writing style pulled through and I actually quite enjoyed it.

If you can switch off your brain enough to not be bothered by the insanely poor decisions of the characters, then this is a surprisingly complex and interesting examination of the aftermath of cheating. I liked how it didn't shy away from showing what happens when teenagers make poor decisions and the exploration of Molly's relationship with her mother was also fairly interesting, albeit something which could have had more of a focus. Overall I really enjoyed it and I am interested in reading the sequel.

Overall Rating:

.5