Thursday, December 10, 2015

Review of The Trouble With Destiny by Lauren Morrill


Title/Author: The Trouble With Destiny by Lauren Morrill
Publisher/Date published: Delacorte, December 8th 2015
How I got this book: received it from the publisher through NetGalley, thanks!

Goodreads summary: It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey...

With her trusty baton and six insanely organized clipboards, drum major Liza Sanders is about to take Destiny by storm — the boat, that is. When Liza discovered that her beloved band was losing funding, she found Destiny, a luxury cruise ship complete with pools, midnight chocolate buffets, and a $25,000 spring break talent show prize.

Liza can’t imagine senior year without the band, and nothing will distract her from achieving victory. She’s therefore not interested when her old camp crush, Lenny, shows up on board, looking shockingly hipster-hot. And she’s especially not interested in Russ, the probably-as-dumb-as-he-is-cute prankster jock whose ex, Demi, happens be Liza’s ex–best friend and leader of the Athenas, a show choir that’s the band’s greatest competition.

But it’s not going to be smooth sailing. After the Destiny breaks down, all of Liza’s best-laid plans start to go awry. Liza likes to think of herself as an expert at almost everything, but when it comes to love, she’s about to find herself lost at sea.

So I went into this with pretty low expectations because one of my friends did not care for it at all. Which might be why I did end up enjoying it, and also because I really liked Meant to Be, but wasn't over the top in love with it.

I liked Liza, obviously she's way uptight and doesn't know how to share her problems, but she's also willing to go the extra mile for something she believes in and on this occasion, that's the school band. And also, I love how being in the band isn't immediately classified as beeing a 'band geek', like in so many series/movies/etc. I mean, being into music and performing in something that's not a rock band isn't something to be ashamed of right? I get that it's not the 'cool thing', but as I'm musically challenged, I'm always in awe of people who know how to put out a decent tune. So I appreciate how Lauren Morrill handled this.

The shenanigans on the boat were pretty funny, I mean, who would have thought that a bowling ball can break a cruise ship? And there's this whole rivalry going on between Liza and her ex-best friend, of which I particularly liked how in the end you can see it from both sides and that's not something that happens with every story.
And yes, there are a lot of misunderstandings that fuel most of the plot, but honestly, I didn't mind that much, because I could see it happening like that because Liza is just a teensy bit clueless and doesn't know what's in front of her nose unless it's spelled out. I also really liked Liza's friends, though they don't get enough screen time in my opinion.

If you couldn't tell from the summary, there's sort of a love triangle going on, and from about halfway through, I started rooting for the guy who turned out to be in the ship of the book, but I hadn't really expected to be cheering him on. But obviously my instincts were right, cause the other guy is a real douche. And Liza is so clueless, so I couldn't really see why he liked her so much, but I did really like the last couple of scenes, they were very cute!

My expectations were REALLY low, but this turned out to be an enjoyable read, not the best of the best, but a light read that had me smiling at the last couple of scenes. There's awkwardness galore and it didn't give me all the swoony feelings, but it was fun.

My rating: 3 stars

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