Review: Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti

Title: Something Like Fate
Author: Susane Colasanti
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Published: 4th May 2010
Source: Own Copy

Warning Review Contains Spoilers!

Best friends Lani and Erin couldn't be more different. Lani's reserved and thoughtful; Erin's bubbly and outgoing. Lani likes to do her own thing; Erin prefers an entourage. There's no possible way they could be interested in the same guy. So when Erin starts dating Jason, Lani can't believe she feels such a deep connection with him, and it may be mutual. The more Lani fights it, the more certain she feels that it's her fate to be with Jason. But what do you do when the love of your life is the one person you can't have? - From Goodreads

I could have read this book easily in one sitting on holiday if my friend had not insisted we go for a walk and get a massage! Let me read my book woman (although the massage was spot on!). This book had an writing style I found offputting but I thought the characters were very realistic as teenagers right from the beginning (for some this may be good or it may be bad!).

I was torn with this book. There were some things I liked and there were some things that really annoyed me. Since I like lists, I will summarise these in list form starting with the good.

What I Liked
1. The Gay Best Friend - You have got to love a gay best friend and this one is particularly blunt and fantastic. 

2. The Parent's obsession with turning out the lights and not turning the heating up!! - This is how I grew up. My parents would refuse to turn the heating up ("Put on another pair of socks if your feet are cold" - My Dad) and you often got the light turned out on you (most often when we were in the bathroom!!!). So to me this was really familiar, realistic and to me amusing.

What I Didn't Like
1. The Writing - I am pretty sure when I was at primary school we were taught that it was bad form to start every other line of speech " Then I said 'blah, blah...'" we get know how dialogue works. (I was also told at primary that swallowing chewing gum would kill me - hmm...) To me it felt a little childish.
 
2. Lani needs to stand up to her bitch BFF - So I can be rather feisty at times, but I really think even a timid person would stand up to being treated like trash by a "friend"! Personally for me Erin would have been a goner as soon as she crossed me once.
 
3. The BFF - As should have been clear by the quotation marks above, I think Erin is no friend to Lani, especially not a best friend. I have a fairly close knit group of friends and in the past we have done some pretty crappy things to each other, however I think real friends are like family; things may seem awful when you are fighting, but you know you will make up eventually.
 
4. The coincidences!! - To me some of the coincidences are totally ridiculous! They both think of different water in terms of shapes and colours (is this not a disease?). Why only water? What about fruit juice or milk? NOT A COINCIDENCE, JUST WEIRD!!
Also they played together when they were babies? I live in the capital of Scotland, and if I stop 10 people on the streets of Edinburgh around my age, I will be connected somehow to at least half of them. If I narrow this down to speaking to people in the catchment area of my high school, or primary school, we will have gone to most of the same places, know the same people and probably have played with each other at some point. NOT A COINCIDENCE, JUST STATISTICS!!
I could go on, but I think I will leave it there!

Sorry for shouting, rant over, there was just so much about this book that rubbed me the wrong way. I think if it had been a longer book I may have given up. The things which annoyed me may be enjoyable for another reader, but for me I found them hard to overlook.

Rating: 1 / 5