Review: An enjoyable read covering common issues that new graduates have to face.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 7, 2013
“Knowing what’s the best match is the tough part, isn’t it? Especially since everything has its dull moments.”–ElleElle has her life planned out. Considering she loves finding order in chaos, it’s no surprise that she’s getting her Master’s Degree in Information Science. But with one quarter left until graduation, Elle returns back to school to find her life suddenly losing order and nothing is going to plan. The shocking part? She’s discovering that sometimes, mathematical modeling can’t answer everything. Sometimes, you have to let your heart decide…“So what variables would I need to guarantee dinner with you?”–PrestonThis is a wonderful New Adult novel that covers so many of the complicated questions those about to graduate from college must face. Elle is a great nerdy/geeky character who strongly believes in mathematical modeling and her research. She loves information science, despite the fact that she hasn’t shared her love for her master’s degree focus with her absentee parents. In fact, her parents don’t even know that she finished her BS degree already and is working on her MS, which is really sad when you think about it. I felt so bad for her since she felt like she didn’t belong anywhere considering her divorced parents had remarried and started new families.Luckily, she has two very, very loyal friends (who I absolutely adore) and a great college mentor. Back to the unlucky side, she has a cheating boyfriend that she just can’t imagine breaking up with. This again goes back to the feeling bad for her because of her parents’ nonchalance with her and preoccupation with their respective new families. Elle has to struggle with her feelings with breaking up with a long term boyfriend, because that meant throwing the future she had planned out away (which was part of her coping mechanism for feeling left out of her parents’ new families). As I said earlier, I’m really glad her best friends helped her through this stage.So, we’ve covered lasting friendships, degrees, significant others…what’s the other major new graduate fear? The dreaded job search! When Elle lands on the CIA radar (in a good way!), she has to decide if she should continue with her ‘safe’ plan and continue into more graduate school like her father expects her to or travel down an unknown path without a safety net. This was a great plot line, especially since it’s for the CIA, which means she couldn’t talk about it with other people. This really tough decision had to be all hers. Oh, and as a yummy bonus, the CIA storyline comes with hottie spy, Preston (medium heat level!).Overall, this is an enjoyable read covering common issues that new graduates have to face. The book covers a semester so there are some time jumps that I wish could have been fleshed out more, and while reading, I felt like I was being told a story rather than being immersed in the story. I would have liked less about Elle dealing with her cheating boyfriend and more excitement with the CIA storyline. There isn’t much action despite the CIA factor although there are some tense scenes. The terrorist plot was stereotypical and not too exciting. The book’s strength lies in Elle’s character growth. It felt like a fast read, and for most of the first part of the book I felt like I was waiting for the book to take off. I do recommend this to those who enjoy character-driven New Adult Contemporary reads dealing with issues common to college graduates. This is a 3 out of 5 for me!(Originally posted on my blog; I received a copy in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.)