Where it Began by Ann Redisch Stampler
Published by Simon Pulse on March 6, 2012
Length: 369 Pages
Genre (s): Young Adult, Contemporary
Source(s): Barnes and Noble / Goodreads / Amazon
Gabby lived under the radar until her makeover. But when she started her senior year as blonder, better-dressed version of herself, she struck gold. Billy Nash believed she was the flawless girl she was pretending to be. The next eight months with Billy were bliss. . . Until the night Gabby woke up on the ground next to the remains of his BMW without a single memory of how she got there.And Billy's nowhere to be found.All Gabby wants is to make everything perfect again. But getting her life back isn't just difficult. It's impossible. Because nothing is the same, and Gabby's beginning to realize she's missed more than a few danger signs along the way. It's time for Gabby to face the truth, even if it means everything changes.Especially if it means everything changes.
I desperately wanted to love this book but the main character's personality or lack there of, if you called hero worshipping her pompous ass boyfriend for just about every freaking thought she has in the story as some kind of personal identity then let me die in shame already.
Overall the story did have the potential of being an epic read. The writing is okay but not head exploding good. Perhaps the whole plot or lack thereof just killed it for me. The characters were just as one dimensional and monotone in its entirety.. The story dragged on far too much with not much character nor actual plot development except for maybe the last few chapters.
The whole novel plateaued on all aspects. Everything almost basically revolved around her pining over the ever popular guy for almost every end of each chapter or her wanting and not wanting to belong in the popular girls clique. Or her ending up with said guy and months later gets trashed, in a car wreck, not remembering squat about it and how she crawls her way under all that crap that goes along with the accident. Even the so called 'big reveal' wasn't much of a shocker really. It actually annoyed me of how incredibly stupid the characters of the story seemed to be.
Actually the only thing or person I enjoyed reading about is Dr. Ponytail. Perhaps even her friends Agnes and Lisa before they joined the stupid wagon, It would appear that they didn't know her well enough for them to think that she's self sacrificing for a jack ass and not even doing anything to enlighten her about it. Were the people in her world just too naive or too gullible?
There would've been substance if Gabby just didn't act like an obsessed person all the time and actually tried to get a life outside the Billy world. She didn't even grow a backbone after everything and just regressed to this more whiny cynical being. Doing everything Billy tells her to do like she's some robot programmed to do everything to his bidding.
Overall, much as I hate to say this but I wouldn't pick up this book again if I'd redo things. I was just too disappointed.
RATING:
