Book Title:
This Song is (Not) For You
Book Author:
Laura Nowlin
Publishing Date:
January 5th, 2015
Publisher:
Sourcebooks Fire
Date Read:
December 31st, 2015

Synopsis

Bandmate, best friend or boyfriend? For Ramona, one choice could mean losing them all.

Ramona and Sam are best friends. She fell for him the moment they met, but their friendship is just too important for her to mess up. Sam loves April, but he would never expect her to feel the same way--she's too quirky and cool for someone like him. Together, they have a band, and put all of their feelings for each other into music.

Then Ramona and Sam meet Tom. He's their band's missing piece, and before Ramona knows it, she's falling for him. But she hasn't fallen out of love with Sam either.

How can she be true to her feelings without breaking up the band?

My Review

This is one of those books that I was incredibly excited for, and when I got approved for this on NetGalley, I was ecstatic.  However, I just didn’t enjoy this one nearly as much as I had hoped I would.  I’m not entirely sure why this book and I weren’t a great fit, since it wasn’t exactly terrible, but I realized three quarters of the way through it that I was trying to force myself to enjoy it rather than actually just enjoying it because it was good.

Ramona and Sam are in a band together, where Ramona plays the drums and Sam plays guitar.  But see, deep down, they’re in love with each other and do that thing where they avoid the topic with one another but go on and on throughout the entire book about how in love they are.  Then Ramona realizes that she’s in love with the new member of their band, too.  His name is Tom, and he had recently gone through a breakup with this long term girlfriend, because she was tired of him not having those kinds of feelings for her.  So now Ramona is in love with two guys, and Tom wants to be with her, and so does Sam, and it just ends up being a crazy love triangle full of teenage angst and confusion (I think the guys were in love with each other, too?  I have no freaking clue).  So…I mean, the backstories for each of the characters were pretty nice…Ramona started taking piano lessons with her mother (who loved piano and was amazing at it) when she was young, and she kept up with it because she not only loved it, but felt like it was a way to connect to her mother, who had died.  Tom’s passion for glittering up everything he comes in contact with (a fire hydrant, for one), is a little strange, but hey, I’m all for embracing different interests.  But all of the things in this book seemed like they were just so messy.  The characters’ lives, the romance(s)…everything.

I’m not trying to say this was a bad book, because it wasn’t.  It was a quick read, and I read the entire thing on New Year’s Eve (I wanted to read one more book before the end of 2015!).  While I did finish it, I found myself losing interest and pretty much just being annoyed with the characters and how immature they seemed by the last half of the book, and I honestly found myself reading this just for the sake of reading, and not because I actually cared about what was going to happen.

So if this sounds like something you might be interested in, give it a go.  Like I said, it wasn’t a bad book, but it just wasn’t a good fit for me.

Note: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

2 stars
This entry was posted in Contemporary, Reviews, Romance, Young Adult and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to This Song is (Not) For You by Laura Nowlin

  1. Deanna says:

    Bummmer! I was interested, but now I think I’ll pass. Great review. I loved your comment about not knowing if everyone was in love with each other. It made me laugh!

    • Kelly says:

      You might end up liking it, so if you do decide to read it, I hope you enjoy it more than I did. I spent a good portion of the book wondering what the heck was going on, especially with the relationships. It was so…I don’t even know, haha

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