The Possibility of Somewhere by Julia Day – eARC Review

Publication Date:

September 6th, 2016

Publisher:

St. Martin’s Griffin

Goodreads Synopsis:

Together is somewhere they long to be.
Ash Gupta has a life full of possibility. His senior year is going exactly as he’s always wanted– he’s admired by his peers, enjoying his classes and getting the kind of grades that his wealthy, immigrant parents expect. There’s only one obstacle in Ash’s path: Eden Moore—the senior most likely to become class valedictorian. How could this unpopular, sharp-tongued girl from the wrong side of the tracks stand in his way?

All Eden’s ever wanted was a way out. Her perfect GPA should be enough to guarantee her a free ride to college — and an exit from her trailer-park existence for good. The last thing she needs is a bitter rivalry with Ash, who wants a prized scholarship for his own selfish reasons. Or so she thinks. . .When Eden ends up working with Ash on a class project, she discovers that the two have more in common than either of them could have imagined. They’re both in pursuit of a dream — one that feels within reach thanks to their new connection. But what does the future hold for two passionate souls from totally different worlds?

Review:

*I was provided a copy by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Once again this was a buddy read with Cristina @ My Tiny Obsessions so click HERE to read her thoughts about this book :).

I wanted to like this book so much. This book has a gorgeous cover, which caught my eye right away, but also has an interesting blurb. Reading the blurb I knew this book could be amazing because of the things it dealt with, especially now that everyone is talking about the importance of diversity in books again, but in the end it was just a big disappointment to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I did like the diversity aspect in this book. I did like that it featured an interracial couple, an Indian main character from a traditional Indian family, a girl who didn’t have a perfect life and lived in a trailer and an autistic character. I really liked that this book included these things but for me most of them were not that well done.

My main problem with this book were the characters and their relationships. I didn’t like most of the characters in this book. Eden, the main character whose perspective we follow, was one of those girls who just want to go away to college and leave the past behind. She doesn’t have the easiest life. Eden live in a trailer park, being judge for that, has shitty biological parents and keeps away from everyone so people can’t disappoint her again. With all of this it’s understandable why she wants to leave so fast. While I had a few problems with her I have to say that I loved to see her babysitting Kurt and Marta and I especially loved that her love for Kurt made her want to study something that she knows will be helpful for him and for people with the same problems as him. I loved that and I loved that she actually wanted to be a special education teacher to help him. I also loved Kurt, Marta and even Raj. Let’s just say that the kids were one of the best parts of this book.

I didn’t like Ash at all. I really wanted to try to understand his side of the story and the problems of living in a traditional Indian family but in the end he ended up being an entitled little brat that couldn’t take responsibilities for what he did and that would blame and attack Eden for things she wasn’t guilty of doing.

I also didn’t understand their relationship at all. Eden and Ash went from being enemies for 3 years to being a couples in about 2 or 3 weeks. How did that happen?? I still can’t understand because there was nothing in that book that would tell me that they liked each other. I also can’t understand why they liked each other because we barely saw them talking. They also didn’t have any chemistry at all so their relationship didn’t work for me. Another relationship that didn’t work for me was Eden and Mundy’s friendship. I can see why it would be important for Eden to get a friend in this book but their friendship was just too fast and, once again, I can’t even understand why they were hanging out. Also, Mundy was too weird and I really didn’t like her.

The only relationship I really liked was Eden’s relationship with her stepmom Marnie. I really liked how close they were and how Eden would talk to Marnie when she needed it. I also really liked how Marnie would be supportive of Eden most of the times.

Another thing I didn’t like in this book was the story itself and how some things were handle. In the end I think this book would have been way better if the things were handled differently. The racism problem was one of my main issues in this book because it wasn’t done that well. Basically almost everyone in this book was a racist. I know racism is still a big problem in the world but not in the way it was described and handled in this book.

Overall, this book was a huge disappointment to me. I normally like forbidden romances but this one was just not that good and I really didn’t like it. With this book having so many diverse elements I was expecting it to be amazing but this is one of those where the diversity is not handled that well which can ruin a book. Also, the characters didn’t help at all since I didn’t like most of them. With this being said, I can’t really recommend this book but if you want to give it a try go on at your own risk.

Rating:

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If you haven’t read it would you read it?