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A review by rybread13
Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid
3.0
Going into Never Always Sometimes, I really just expected a cute contemporary. I wanted to be able to sit back and relax while reading instead of the high paced novels that I’ve been reading lately. Unfortunately, this just wasn’t the one that I was looking for. This book reminds me of The Beginning of Everything mixed with Since You’ve Been Gone and I don’t know how I feel about that.
The story or characters didn’t wow me enough to make me want to read it again. No, I don’t read every book I thought was good unfortunately. Although usually, after completing a book I enjoyed, I always have the sense of starting it over from the beginning. I didn’t get that feeling from this book at all. I’ve seem all of these characters and some of the plot points in other stories. Maybe that was the point, being a book about chiches, but it wasn’t enough to pull me in for a second time. In fact, it was just enough to get me through it the first time.
The characters were cute and funny like most contemporary books but I couldn’t connect to them. The overall book felt very disconnected which was really reflected in the way the characters-and-reader-chemistry. I couldn’t mash well with any character and often times found myself zoning out during the internal dialogue and only being entertained when Julia was making a joke or Dave was messing around with Julia, which honestly wasn’t super interesting in itself.
Never Always Sometimes was written in dual third person limited perspective. It was definitely a different experience for me seeing as though I don’t read a ton of dual perspectives in the first place. The first half is written in Dave’s POV while the second half is written in Julia’s POV. This may have been yet another reason why the story felt very disconnected for me. I couldn’t focus enough on the characters because I was too focused on the way the scenes and the POVs were written. It takes away from the story itself and doesn’t give the story the credit that it deserves.
Overall, Never Always Sometimes was a “meh” book. It was short so it wasn’t a time commitment or anything of the sorts. If it was any longer, I may not have finished it. Definitely not a must read but a good story to read if you need something quick and to the point.
The story or characters didn’t wow me enough to make me want to read it again. No, I don’t read every book I thought was good unfortunately. Although usually, after completing a book I enjoyed, I always have the sense of starting it over from the beginning. I didn’t get that feeling from this book at all. I’ve seem all of these characters and some of the plot points in other stories. Maybe that was the point, being a book about chiches, but it wasn’t enough to pull me in for a second time. In fact, it was just enough to get me through it the first time.
The characters were cute and funny like most contemporary books but I couldn’t connect to them. The overall book felt very disconnected which was really reflected in the way the characters-and-reader-chemistry. I couldn’t mash well with any character and often times found myself zoning out during the internal dialogue and only being entertained when Julia was making a joke or Dave was messing around with Julia, which honestly wasn’t super interesting in itself.
Never Always Sometimes was written in dual third person limited perspective. It was definitely a different experience for me seeing as though I don’t read a ton of dual perspectives in the first place. The first half is written in Dave’s POV while the second half is written in Julia’s POV. This may have been yet another reason why the story felt very disconnected for me. I couldn’t focus enough on the characters because I was too focused on the way the scenes and the POVs were written. It takes away from the story itself and doesn’t give the story the credit that it deserves.
Overall, Never Always Sometimes was a “meh” book. It was short so it wasn’t a time commitment or anything of the sorts. If it was any longer, I may not have finished it. Definitely not a must read but a good story to read if you need something quick and to the point.