Book Review #2: Just Friends

Author(s): Billy Taylor

Genre: romance
Number of pages: 300
Released: 2016

RATINGS…

Plot: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Writing: 2/5
Overall enjoy-ability: 3/5

THOUGHTS?

I’m really sorry to start off negative, but the only thing that bugged me about this book, to the point where I was considering stopping reading it, is the grammar mistakes. I’m not sure if this was because I read it as an e-book, but I had to fight the urge to copy the writing into Word and edit it, and then send it to Billy. That’s why I gave ‘writing’ a 2. And why ‘enjoy-ability’ fell to 3, as well - I couldn’t focus properly on the actual story line.

Anyway, moving on to the more happy bits of me fangirling over the incredibly adoring relationship of August Bishop and Ethan Knight (and their very attractive-sounding names), I loved it. I loved the mysteriousness of Ethan, and the way August thinks like pretty much every teenage girl - the overthinking, the worrying for no reason, the over-excitement, ya’ll know what I mean. Girls are intense.

August and Ethan basically live the dream. She gets to go to NYC to film a movie, starring a famous super model who she becomes besties with, and he gets his own magic show, airing live on TV. Though I have to admit, some of his tricks made me panic as much as August was. And they live in a huge, super expensive, luxury apartment. Okay, maybe it’s unrealistic. But it’s nice to dream, especially if you’re a teenager living in gloomy England.

I liked their relationship to the point where I wished I had a best friend like Ethan, and a boyfriend like Ethan too. I think one of my favourite parts of romance stories is where the best friend becomes the boyfriend. Plus, that particular part in this book is so cute I was squealing (yes, I did get weird looks from certain members of my family). I was also considering copying their little tradition of August buying him a new tie every birthday and Christmas. This was such a tiny detail in the book, but every day she would describe the exact tie he was wearing and when she bought it for him. I love the idea of that.

The story is written in the form of a diary - August’s diary. Every chapter is titled with a different date, sometimes it’s consecutive days, and sometimes it’s a week or two later. I liked it when the chapters skipped a few days - I enjoy a bit of mystery as to what has been happening to August that she had no time to write. After all, being an actress is, no doubt, busy ;)

Another negative thing, and the other reason as to ‘overall enjoy-ability’ is on 3, is that some of the chapters waffle - there’s nothing going on, and if something does go on it either has no connection to the plot, character development, or a brand new piece of drama, or it’s just a random confusing couple of pages.

Overall, it’s an adorable romance novel. But it isn’t soppy - there’s some drama parts and there’s some mystery parts, too, it’s an all-in-one!

How did you like the book?

J x