• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About
  • Challenges
  • Reviews
  • Contact
  • Nav Social Menu

    • Bloglovin
    • Email
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
    • Pinterest
    • RSS
    • Twitter
    • YouTube

Books of Amber

Latest Posts

Book Review: Siri, Who Am I? by Sam Tschida

Book Review: The Survivors by Jane Harper

Book Review: Concrete Rose by Angie Thomas

A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall

15/10/2014      1 Comment

A Little Something Different by Sandy HallA Little Something Different by Sandy Hall
Release Date: 26th August, 2014
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Source: Publisher
Add it: Goodreads
Rating: two-stars

The creative writing teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in common—they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together. Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work things out.  But somehow even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone can see it. Their creative writing teacher pushes them together. The baristas at Starbucks watch their relationship like a TV show. Their bus driver tells his wife about them. The waitress at the diner automatically seats them together. Even the squirrel who lives on the college green believes in their relationship.

Surely Gabe and Lea will figure out that they are meant to be together....

 I don’t often feel too old for a book but guys, this book really made me feel my age. I think what A Little Something Different was going for was sweet fluff but it honestly for me missed the mark and ended up just feeling very juvenile. Where do I begin, really? With the different POVs from not just people but benches and squirrels, complete with endless talk about comfortable butts and acorns (seriously) or the awkward, shy  characters that were head over heels for each other but were too awkward and shy to do anything about their feelings?

I feel like I shouldn’t be so harsh with a book that honestly is light romance but there are some things that I found myself increasingly irritated by. There are a lot of cute teenage romances that I enjoyed – Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour and Anna and the French Kiss come to mind – but I just couldn’t get into this story at all. The characters, especially Lea and Gabe, didn’t inspire anything in me except boredom with a side of annoyance. Our two main characters who everyone just can’t help but want together are so boring; there’s a lot of back and forth of ‘does he/she like me’ with everyone else putting in their opinions but what this book does is something I can’t actually bear in any medium whatsoever. I don’t like being told that I should love this couple or that character. I want reasons why these characters are good together, I want to see them interact and grow around each other and as you can probably guess where I’m going with this, Lea and Gabe are a classic case of telling and not showing. Do I care what random characters think about these two at the end of the day if I haven’t spent enough time with them myself to have an opinion. Put it this way, I liked exactly one character and that was Victor, a grumpy guy who develops an irrational hatred of that cutesy guy and girl in his class, Me too, buddy, me too.

So this book fails in two major ways for me – this couple that are supposedly meant to be are actually not that great together or individually, but there are a few other things that really bugged me. I felt like one of the major draws for me to this book – the multiple POVs – were bland and in two cases, completely unnecessary other than to fill the gimmick quota. Seriously, a POV from a bench and a squirrel? Seriously? Neither POV adds anything to the storyline because both are just so abstract. But my least favourite thing about this book and the biggest reason I tuned out of the story completely was the attitude to women. There’s a whole thing with a side character, Hillary, who everyone hates because she likes Gabe and therefore is like, a terrible person because I don’t know, no-one in this book is over fifteen years old (that’s a joke, they’re COLLEGE students). She has a POV and surprisingly is vacuous and under-developed because this book really doesn’t want you to like her. Haha, girls, amirite. Even the teacher, (the TEACHER) hates Hillary because she gets in the way of the ship, I wish I was making this up, to the point where she tries to talk Hillary out of taking her class next semester so that Gabe and Lea have a chance. Um, except Hillary is offhandedly described as being pretty good at the subject and I just don’t understand anything at all. There’s this really kind of unpleasant undercurrent of the kinds of girls who are ‘nice’ and girls who ‘aren’t’ and I don’t want to read about it ever. I don’t care! I will never care! I hope Hillary sleeps with everyone and graduates with honours! And it’s not even limited to this one character – there’s another girl who’s described as a ‘bitch’ because she’s direct and blunt and unpleasant to customers (read: Gabe) during her shifts at a minimum wage job.

lc

I mean this is a cute read if you overlook certain things and it definitely seems to be quite popular but for me it really wasn’t enjoyable. I didn’t even mean to rant like I did so I clearly needed to vent. It’s really not that hard to write romance without walking all over other girls is all I’m saying.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Teen Underground says

    15/10/2014 at 6:21 pm

    Thanks for the honest review! I’ve read mixed things about this one, and I know I’ve got to give it a go myself before I pass judgment, but I’m really not a fan of huge numbers of POVs in one story, so I suspect it won’t be a favorite of mine either (despite the adorable cover).

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe via Email

Join 4,579 other subscribers

Current Giveaways

None

Currently Reading

Currently Reading

Upcoming Reviews

None yet!

Blogroll

  • All About Books
  • Artsy Musings of a Bibliophile
  • I Should Read That
  • Lisa is Busy Nerding
  • My Friends Are Fiction
  • Recaptains
  • The Daily Prophecy
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy

Hello!

Hello!

My name is Amber, I'm 27 years old, and I've been a book blogger, reviewer, and Tuber for ten years. When I'm not reading, I love gaming, exercising, cinema trips, hiking, and exploring.

Welcome to my blog!

Subscribe!

Blog Archive

Categories

Follow us on Instagram

(This book was sent to me by the author as a gift) (This book was sent to me by the author as a gift)

Happy release day to The Effort! I'm so excited to read this apocalyptic story about people coming together to prevent a global crisis. Like I said the other day, I'm really into disaster stories lately 😊

#books #booktube #smallyoutuber #smallyoutubercommunity #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #bookish #debutauthors #21ders #debutbooks #debutshowcase #dac21 #the21ders #reading #igbooks #booksofig #igreads #book
* ad - book provided by publisher for free in exch * ad - book provided by publisher for free in exchange for an honest review *

I'm smashing through my physical ARCs this week, which means it's almost time for me to read This is Not the Jess Show! I'm excited for this one, if a little cautious about how similar to The Truman Show it's going to be.

#books #booktube #smallyoutuber #smallyoutubercommunity #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #yabooks #bookish #youngadultbooks #booksofig #igreads #currentlyreading #igbooks #bookstagramuk #bookstagrammer
The first week back at work put me in an unfortuna The first week back at work put me in an unfortunate reading slump, but I'm hoping Hold Back the Stars will get me out of it! I'm going to be reading this one today and hopefully forgetting about real life.

#books #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #bookish #sff #sffbooks #holdbackthestars #bookstoread #currentlyreading #reading #igbooks #booksofig #igreads #bookstagramuk #booksbooksbooks #bookgram
* ad - book provided by publisher for free in exch * ad - book provided by publisher for free in exchange for an honest review*

I absolutely blasted through The Girls I've Been by Tess Sharpe this week! I was worried I was getting slumpy from too much sff so I switched to a YA thriller and WHEW, it was excellent. 

The Girls I've Been is about a girl called Nora who is the daughter of a con artist (and also bi!). She's living her own life now away from her mother, and then someone tries to rob a bank while she's inside it.

This was so fast paced and I love that it was told in a non linear format. Trigger warnings for lots of things, though. You can find the full list on the author's website but the main one for me was domestic violence.

#books #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #yabooks #thegirlsivebeen #yathrillers #yathriller #thrillerbooks #booktube #smallyoutuber #smallyoutubercommunity #reading
Because I like to read about other apocalypses dur Because I like to read about other apocalypses during pandemics, apparently.

 I've just started The Lightest Object in the Universe and I'm intrigued! Have you read it?

#books #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #bookstagramuk #currentlyreading #dystopia #dystopianbooks #apocalypse #sff #sffbooks #bookish #booktube #smallbookstagrammer #booksbooksbooks
*AD - book gifted by publisher in exchange for an *AD - book gifted by publisher in exchange for an honest review* 

Siri, Who Am I? was my final read of 2020 and it was a fun one. While I didn't love how the main character treated others, particularly her attitude towards sex workers, I did like how fast paced this one was and the slight mystery element mixed with Rich People Drama kept me reading. Will I reread it? No. But I enjoyed my time with it well enough.

#books #booktube #smallyoutuber #smallyoutubercommunity #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #bookreview #smallbookstagrammer #booksbooksbooks #siriwhoami #romcom #reading
I'm supposed to be starting The Bear and the Night I'm supposed to be starting The Bear and the Nightingale on Tuesday for my weekly buddy read, but I want to read it now! I should probably finish some of the books I've already started though.

#books #booktube #smallyoutuber #smallyoutubercommunity #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #booksbooksbooks #bookstoread #tbr #tbrpile #toread #readingpile #reading #bookaddict #igbooks #booksofig #igreads #thebearandthenightingale #winternighttrilogy
Yes, I'm still reading this 😂 I'm trying to fin Yes, I'm still reading this 😂 I'm trying to finish it by the end of the year but who knows if that'll happen? I'm enjoying buddy reading it with @ishouldreadthat though, and I'm sure she's appreciating my rants and fangirling.

#books #booktube #smallyoutuber #smallyoutubercommunity #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #wordsofradiance #thewayofkings #Stormlight #stormlightarchive #brandonSanderson #fantasybooks #sff
I am so unbelievably excited to try this YA thrill I am so unbelievably excited to try this YA thriller this month. I am tempted to drop everything and pick it up right now but, ya know, commitments.

#books #booktube #smallyoutuber #smallyoutubercommunity #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #yabooks #youngadultbooks #thrillerbooks #smallbookstagrammer #booksbooksbooks #tbr #toberead #tbrpile #agoodgirlsguidetomurder
I just HAD to feature one of my favourite books of I just HAD to feature one of my favourite books of the year, and the start of one of my all time favourite series before the end of 2020. I adore The City of Brass so much, and I recommend it to everyone I come across. I've reread it three times now, and in 2021 I plan to make it four!

What's your favourite fantasy series?

#books #booktube #smallyoutuber #smallyoutubercommunity #bookstagram #bookblogger #bookworm #daevabad #daevabadtrilogy #thecityofbrass #fantasybooks #fantasyreader #fantasy #reading #booksbooksbooks #booksofig #igreads #favoritebooks #christmasbooks #vlogmas #bookmas

Copyright © 2021 ·