Read: July 24th- August 3rd, 2016
Publisher: HarperTeen
Series: Standalone
Format: ARC, 400 pages
Source: Publisher in exchange for honest review
Description from GoodReads:
Maguire is bad luck.
No matter how many charms she buys off the internet or good luck rituals she performs each morning, horrible things happen when Maguire is around. Like that time the roller coaster jumped off its tracks. Or the time the house next door caught on fire. Or that time her brother, father, and uncle were all killed in a car crash—and Maguire walked away with barely a scratch.
It’s safest for Maguire to hide out in her room, where she can cause less damage and avoid new people who she could hurt. But then she meets Jordy, an aspiring tennis star. Jordy is confident, talented, and lucky, and he’s convinced he can help Maguire break her unlucky streak. Maguire knows that the best thing she can do for Jordy is to stay away. But it turns out staying away may be harder than she thought.
Review:
It's hard to let yourself be happy, isn't it?
I received Girl Against the Universe oh so long ago to review, and I just haven't been in a contemporary mood until these past weeks. So out of my pile of realistic fictions books that was starting to get pretty big, I decided to finally pick it up!
Girl Against the Universe got to me more than I thought it would, it usually takes a bit for contemporaries to have some sort of effect on me. It had a bunch of deep topics in it, rather than the usual bubbliness like other contemporaries do. GATU dealt with with multiple different health issues, including some mental health ones. Maguire had to deal with guilt from more than one occasion, because of the many accidents that she was apart of, as well as PTSD. Throughout the book, Maguire had to deal with a lot, and where I could not relate to everything she was going through, I could understand why she felt the way she did. People all recover from things differently, with Maguire's history, it made for a very interesting story to read about.
I enjoyed reading about all the characters from the book, they all had their roles to play. Although I did not like every single one of them. Jordy for example, I just couldn't wrap my heart around him. Something about him would just mess with me, so I couldn't enjoy Maguire's and his relationship as much as I should have. I did in fact, love Maguire's Step Dad. He almost felt the same way about how things turned out after the accident. In order for him to be happy, someone else had to die. In the end, after that one evening scene, I think he and Maguire finally understood each other to the point where they could both help each other.
Girl Against the Universe was a deeply emotional read, filled with overcoming guilt, overcoming fear and lots of tennis. I would definitely recommend Girl Against the Universe to people who are looking for a serious contemporary.
Girl Against the Universe got to me more than I thought it would, it usually takes a bit for contemporaries to have some sort of effect on me. It had a bunch of deep topics in it, rather than the usual bubbliness like other contemporaries do. GATU dealt with with multiple different health issues, including some mental health ones. Maguire had to deal with guilt from more than one occasion, because of the many accidents that she was apart of, as well as PTSD. Throughout the book, Maguire had to deal with a lot, and where I could not relate to everything she was going through, I could understand why she felt the way she did. People all recover from things differently, with Maguire's history, it made for a very interesting story to read about.
I enjoyed reading about all the characters from the book, they all had their roles to play. Although I did not like every single one of them. Jordy for example, I just couldn't wrap my heart around him. Something about him would just mess with me, so I couldn't enjoy Maguire's and his relationship as much as I should have. I did in fact, love Maguire's Step Dad. He almost felt the same way about how things turned out after the accident. In order for him to be happy, someone else had to die. In the end, after that one evening scene, I think he and Maguire finally understood each other to the point where they could both help each other.
Girl Against the Universe was a deeply emotional read, filled with overcoming guilt, overcoming fear and lots of tennis. I would definitely recommend Girl Against the Universe to people who are looking for a serious contemporary.
Rating:
Favourite Quote:
"Sometimes terrible things happen and it's no one's fault. Sometimes we do the best we can and still have bad outcomes."
Recommend to People Who Enjoy:
Young Adult, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Romance, Tennis, Bad Luck
I enjoyed this one, too! I love how easy it was to empathize with Maguire - irrational fears and all.
ReplyDeleteOh this sounds really good. I've been in a contemporary mood lately so off to amazon I go
ReplyDeleteFor some reason this one didn't appeal to me enough to truly look into it, but now I've seen a few reviews that have made me take note. It sounds like something I'd love - I'm convinced.
ReplyDeleteNicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction