Tags
Title: Four Doors Down
Author: Emma Doherty
Genre: Young Adult
Release Date: July 5, 2016
Becca McKenzie is just trying to make it through her senior year of high school. She has good friends and a gorgeous boyfriend but Ryan Jackson, the bane of her existence, keeps popping up everywhere.
She doesn’t care that they were best friends for years. She doesn’t care that their moms are close and therefore she hears more about him that she’d ever care to know. She doesn’t care that their mutual friend, Jake, keeps pushing them all to hang out together, and she especially doesn’t care that the rest of the school bows down and worships him.
Becca decided years ago that he wasn’t worth her time and nothing, NOTHING, is going to change her mind.
“Come on, tell me, Becs.” There it is again, that old nickname. I turn my head to look at him. He’s studying me intently.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not my name.”
“Yes it is,” he says with a smile.
“No. My name is Rebecca. Or Becca. Not Becs. It’s too…” I pause. “It’s too familiar,” I tell him with a sigh.
“Hey, Ryan,” two girls greet him, smiling flirtatiously as they walk past us. My eyes follow them, glad for the distrac-tion, but when I turn back to Ryan, he hasn’t even glanced in their direction. His eyes are still focused on mine.
I raise my eyebrows at him. “You don’t want to follow them and see if there’s a spare classroom you can take advantage of?”
He smirks at me and glances away briefly before looking back into my eyes. “I’d rather talk to you,” he says quietly.
I turn to the side and see Ryan approaching with Jake and try not to pull a face. He’s glancing at Katie and his friends suspiciously. “What are you guys talking about?” he asks as soon as he reaches us.
I wait for Katie to reply, but she just stares back at him smiling.
“Just about how much we can’t stand each other,” I inform Ryan.
He glances over at me. This is the first time we’ve spoken since our fight at the beach. I mean, let’s face it: we definitely didn’t speak in Sal’s, we just shot each other dirty looks, and I’m still annoyed at him for the way he spoke about Charlie.
I don’t understand him. Was he always this interfering?
“Oh come on, Becca, he’s not that bad,” Jake says, slapping Ryan on the back and coming to his defense.
“Well not compared to Adolf Hitler, he isn’t,” I instantly reply to chuckles from his friends.
“You guys are back to being friends again,” Jake continues.
“Please,” I scoff. “I’d rather go for a sleepover at Jessica Murphy’s.”
Ryan snickers and crosses his arms. “Yeah? Maybe you could play dodgeball again?”
My mouth falls open as I hear the laughter from his friends. I can’t believe he’s just brought that up again. I’m already humiliated enough over that whole incident.
“Fuck you, Ryan!”
“He wishes,” someone says from behind me. I swing my head around but I have no idea who said it and they’re all looking away, trying not to laugh. I immediately get nervous and have flashbacks to teen movies where the popular kids play a prank on the dork to make everyone else laugh.
Something is definitely going on here.
Gosh – help me – Becca McKenzie must have been the most annoying and dense heroine that I read in a novel that I ever read so far. It is actually a wonder that she made it to her senior year in high school.
Ah – now I can already see the wheels in your head start turning – how can a book with that review opening get 4 Stars from me – you wonder? Right ?
Well I guess it’s the writing talent of Emma Doherty that she managed to write “Four Doors down” in such an engaging way that even an annoying character will not keep you from reading further– I can not remember and I did not count the number of times I thought can this girl really be THAT dense ?
I even went so far to imagine what a movie with this plot might look like… and at that moment I understood something. Becca might be the most dense character I have ever encountered so far – but I actually enjoyed reading about her.
Even if only to try and wrap my brain around the fact that she really had literally NO IDEA what was going on. It was like OUT in the open – WIDE for anyone to see – even a blind person could have FELT the vibes and the tension.
But Becca was happily oblivious in her own little reality.
I am not sure if that was the authors intension because usually characters are written in a way that the reader can connect WITH them (which sorry to say was not possible in any way with her).
But somehow – once I made my piece with that fact – the whole plot became actually pretty damn funny and I felt so sorry for Ryan at times (scratch that – it was really MOST of the time – he was such a nice person and really had the patience of a saint).
I might even go so far to say that it was Becca – that was the bane of Ryan’s existence and not the other way around like the blurb suggests …
If you think the Blurb sounds interesting – you should really try the book – just be patient with Becca – #still laughing …
be really patient #yes still laughing
HOSTED BY:
