Novel Review: The View From the Top by Hillary Frank

Rating (Out of 5): ~1

Genre: YA Contemporary Romance

Publisher: Dutton (Penguin)

Release Date: 2010

Spoilers?: No.

Buy it here: Amazon. Barnes and Noble. Powells.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Eighteen-year-old Anabelle?s last few months in her coastal hometown are bittersweet. Instead of the quiet precollege summer she expects, Anabelle makes some surprising discoveries about herself as she navigates romantic entanglements and changing friendships. Through shifting points of view in seven interconnected stories, we glimpse the limits of how well her friends really know Anabelle . . . and how little she grasps about the way they see her. With wry observations and quirky humor, critically acclaimed novelist Hillary Frank gives voice and depth to six unique characters whose stories intertwine to form a complete picture of one shared summer.

The Cover:

I honestly love this cover. I think it's beautiful, the colors and the image of the Ferris wheel, and it even fits a scene inside the book. I do think it's beauty is misleading, though, because the book was not nearly as good or symbolic as this picture portrays.

Review:

"'That they can stay together. That they can be high school sweethearts and stay together. I just thought, if you’re devoted enough, if you never stop showing each other that you’re totally, completely in love, you can get through anything.’” (Hardback, pg. 121)

I’m honestly just disappointed in this book.

I thought it sounded really good, and I love multiple point of view stories, and the cover is really pretty. I felt like this was going to be a good book. And then it really wasn’t.

It starts out just kind of boring, as we meet the first character, the one who entwines all of the other stories. But then we meet the other characters, and find out that pretty much all of them are in love with her, even the other girl character, and then we get to the end.

I was just expecting so much more, so much more complications and twists and plot. Instead it’s all kind of boring. Nothing big happens. I didn’t understand why all the characters loved this girl, whom I didn’t really care for, and it didn’t even seem like she loved herself. The ending was okay, but nothing really happened. It didn’t feel deserving or satisfactory, and it kind of just ends.

I was just disappointed. I was expecting to like it, and instead I really didn’t.