Title: Been Here All Along
Author: Sandy Hall
Published: July, 2017 by Pan Macmillan
Pages: 224
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

Gideon always has a plan. His plans include running for class president, becoming head of the yearbook committee and having his choice of colleges. They do not include falling head over heels for his best friend and next-door neighbour, Kyle. It’s a distraction. It’s pointless, as Kyle is already dating the gorgeous and popular head cheerleader, Ruby. And Gideon doesn’t know what to do . . .

Kyle finally feels like he has a handle on life. He has a wonderful girlfriend, a best friend willing to debate the finer points of Lord of the Rings, and social acceptance as captain of the basketball team. Then, both Ruby and Gideon start acting really weird, just as his spot on the team is threatened, and Kyle can’t quite figure out what he did wrong . . .

Final Thoughts:
With characters so vanilla, I kept wondering why I was reading this. It wasn’t inherently bad, I mean, I got through it in a few lunch breaks, but there was just no meat to it. Occasionally, some issue would arise and get my hopes up that there’d be some drama, something to invest in, but every time an easy out would appear to solve the problem. It seemed like all of the characters were made simply to be likeable, rather than to be real. Sure, it was sort of romantic, watching best friends realise they like each other, but it was just fluff.

Title: Signs Point To Yes
Author: Sandy Hall
Published: October, 2015 by Swoon Reads
Pages: 288
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

If only Jane’s Magic 8 Ball could tell her how to get through the summer. With her “perfect” sister, Margo, home for her “perfect” internship, Jane is not going to be able to spend the summer writing fan fiction, as she had planned. And her emergency babysitting job requires Jane to spend the whole summer in awkward proximity to her new crush, Teo, a nerdy-hot lifeguard with problems of his own. With his best friend out of town, Teo finds himself without anyone to confide in…except Jane. Will Jane and Teo be able to salvage each other’s summer? Even the Magic 8 Ball doesn’t have an answer…but signs point to yes.

Final Thoughts:
Fluffy romance is what you’ll find here. The stakes are low to point where pretty much nothing goes wrong for the main character, Jane. The romance, I’d say it’s marshmallow (enough to bite into, but not a lot of substance), and the family drama, it doesn’t go far beyond Jane and her mum arguing over what she’ll do after high school. So if you’re looking for a meaty contemporary to rage over your emotions, this isn’t it. However, it is a quick little book to devour, have some mild fun with, and move on from.

Title: A Little Something Different
Author: Sandy Hall
Published: August, 2014 by Swoon Reads
Pages: 247
Rating:  
Purchase: The Book Depository

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….

Final Thoughts:
Not going to lie, I picked this book up purely because one of the POVs is a squirrel, and my RPT (Random Page Test) landed me on the squirrel telling us how his friend’s tail got trodden on one summer and has never been the same since. That was all I needed. I bought it, took it home, and got stuck right into it. By the end of the novel I was in love. A Little Something Different is not only hilarious, and romantic, but as the title suggests, it provides us with a new way of experiencing the YA contemporary/ romance: from the perspective of basically everyone except that of the target ‘couple’.