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Tonight the Streets Are Ours

Leila Sales

Start date: November 1, 2015

Finish date: December 1, 2015

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Aug 31, 2014 Pili rated it liked it

Shelves: arcs, 105-challenge-ya-contemporaries

Another unconventional coming of age story about a girl learning who she is and finding her worth not definying herself in relation to others.

Unfortunately I couldn't relate as much to Arden as I would have liked, and when you can't relate with the main character the emotional connection with the book diminishes, and since I'm a gut-feeling kind of girl when it comes to rating, I cannot give this one more than a 3 stars.

Characters are very well written and realistic, complex and with good and b Another unconventional coming of age story about a girl learning who she is and finding her worth not definying herself in relation to others.

Unfortunately I couldn't relate as much to Arden as I would have liked, and when you can't relate with the main character the emotional connection with the book diminishes, and since I'm a gut-feeling kind of girl when it comes to rating, I cannot give this one more than a 3 stars.

Characters are very well written and realistic, complex and with good and bad things. The relationships between friends and family are also complex and feel real. Friends are there for each other, but also resent each other on occasion and feel like they matter less or underappreciated. The way that Arden deals with her mother leaving is also excellently done.

The writing was fantastic too, but that is something to be expected of Leila Sales, so even if I wasn't too keen on Arden or her story I just couldn't stop reading. Seeing Arden's growth towards the end of the book was satisfying and I also liked how the people around her shook her ideas about them and herself by the end too and how she learnt to look at herself and others in a different way.

But for most of the book I just couldn't stand Arden and the way she was handling herself or her life... I just couldn't relate to her at all, and then when we meet Peter? Nope, couldn't stand him at all either...

One of the things I loved the most about this book, as I did with TSWSYL, is that the romance is not magically fixing anything, and that it's not the most important part of the book. Growth for the characters is, figuring out who they are and who they want to be and understanding themselves and others better is.

And I think that after loving This Song Will Save Your Life so MUCH and relating so much and feeling so much for Elise, it was dissapointing to feel so contrary and so little empathy for Arden...

So yeah, clearly this was a case of "it's not me, it's you" with a book. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 because of its superbly written characters.

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