Hi everybody! I hope you all are having a lovely Sunday evening! Spring break has come and gone, the week after spring break has come and gone, and, yes, I have kicked myself off Tumblr and YouTube and am posting something. Weeeeeee!

Ahem. Anyway. Today’s book is How to Love, written by Katie Cotugno!

Serena Montero has been crazy about Sawyer LeGrande for so long it’s practically engrained in her DNA. It’s never going to happen, of course–Sawyer is cool, popular, a friend of the family’s with a half moon necklace. Never gonna happen. Never. Nope. NO.

But, somehow, in some insane way. . .it does. (Cause where would the story be otherwise?) Sawyer and Reena are dating, or something like it. Maybe. It involves kissing? It’s all very complicated, and not even Reena is sure what is going on, what they have.

It is MESSY. MESSINESS ABOUNDS. LOOK AT ALL THE MESSINESS.

And then. . .Sawyer leaves. Zip. Reena is left behind in their small Florida town, a place she’s always wanted to escape. And she’s pregnant.

BOOM.

This is not the way she envisioned her life going. Especially when Sawyer returns, completely out of the blue.

I really like it when books just suck me into a whirlwind–like a tear-through-the-thing, totally-just-meant-to-read-a-few-pages, I-should-probably-do-homework-now whirlwind. (I mean, this isn’t good for my productivity. But oh well.) And How to Love delivers. Oh, it delivers. You probably shouldn’t read this if you have a big project due or something.

First of all, this book is fun to read. Obviously, the subject matter isn’t exactly fun–there is angst, fighting, issues to work through, etc. But the experience of reading it, of gobbling it up and getting sucked in like that–that was fun.

Cotugno tells the story through alternating chapters, those set before Sawyer’s disappearance and those set after his return. We’re introduced to Reena’s family and friends: Her best friend, Allie, her restaurant-owning father, the hilarious and wonderful Shelby. (I like Shelby. A lot.) The characters are awesome. I love how well-done and well-written they are, and how much originality they have. And even though I disliked some of them at least once while reading, it didn’t interfere with my reading experience as a whole. Yes, they can all be jerks sometimes, but that didn’t really cause any problems where my enjoyment of the book was concerned. The characters are human and unique, and they’re awesome.

I also love the little touches Cotugno adds, and the way she writes–the way she describes things, the way she writes about emotions in this great way that doesn’t sound flowery or pretentious. She had me interested from the first sentence:

“I’ve been looking for Sawyer for half a lifetime when I find him standing in front of the Slurpee machine at the 7-Eleven on Federal Highway, gazing through the window at the frozen, neon-bright churning like he’s expecting the mysteries of the universe to be revealed to him from inside.”

When I say this book can suck you in, it can suck you in. I didn’t want to stop reading. How to Love is a really, really good book, and I definitely enjoyed reading it. 🙂

I suppose that’s it for today. Sorry if this is a little lacking compared to my other posts, but I hope to get back in the groove and to be posting more often soon! I hope you all have an awesome night!

Book Quote of the Day: “I felt so incredibly, unforgivably stupid, was the worst part–the lamest kind of stereotype, the dumbest kind of fool.” —How to Love, by Katie Cotugno

P.S. If you visit Katie’s website, you can find some more of her awesome writing. It kind of makes me desperate for another book. Fingers crossed!