The Trouble with Destiny by Lauren Morrill

The Trouble with Destiny definitely had a cute romance, a pretty decent plot, and a lot of the characters were interesting…but something about this book just stopped me from really, truly enjoying it.  I’m pretty sure it just had something to do with how young it felt.  While I knew this book was for the young adult audience (and while YA is my favorite, so it isn’t like I don’t read a lot of it), it just felt like perhaps it was better suited for members of the really young adult audience.  Also, while it wasn’t really a story that I’ve read before, it wasn’t anything particularly memorable, either.  I love when a book really sticks with me for a long time after I finish it, and this one didn’t have that going for it.

In order to save the high school band, Liza decides to have them participate in a competition in order to win $25,000.  So they hop aboard a cruise ship and set off to try and win, competing with the Athenas, which are kind of like an all girl show choir, and made up of mean girls (including one who used to be Liza’s best friend).  Of course, the typical snide remarks and boyfriend stealing tactics ensue.  While she doesn’t want the band to know that they are in danger of losing all their funding and being cut from the school program, Liza is incredibly stressed out trying to get them to perform their best and win.  Things seem like they’re going okay, and then suddenly there’s a boy.

Yep.  A boy.  Liza goes from not caring about boys in the slightest to “madly in love with gotta have him” over Lenny, a boy she shared a kiss with at summer camp once.  At this point, Liza seems to be willing to do anything to get him to notice her, even though he seems to be spending all of his time with Liza’s old best friend (and leader of the Athenas group).

It wasn’t a bad read, and like I said, it was pretty cute, but the twists were kind of predictable.  In fact, I pretty much figured out what was going to happen like three or four chapters into the book, but since I have a lot of favorites that are predictable like that, it didn’t bother me much.  It was also pretty amusing in some spots, and the random things that happened to Liza kind of reminded me of my own ridiculousness and things that would happen to me.

If you’re up for a cute, quick read (it took me like half a day to finish this), it’s a good one to try.

Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.