Annie Roth has led a very sheltered life. After her mother died in a terrible accident just months after Annie was born, her grieving father forbade her from having any semblance of a social life. Barely allowed to leave the house, and always supervised by her brothers, eighteen-year-old Annie decided that the only way to be happy was to go to college on the other side of the country.
With the help of her new roommate, Cami, Annie makes a list of twenty things she’d like to do before she’s out of her teens. Annie has just over a year to do things like have her first kiss, go skinny dipping, go on a road trip, and get a guy’s phone number. Lucky for her, she meets a great group of friends very quickly, all of whom are happy to help her cross things off her list. The only problem is Ryan, who’s not only Cami’s cousin, but also best friends with Chris, the guy Annie’s been seeing. Annie can’t get Ryan out of her mind, but he’s too loyal to Chris to let anything happen.
Annie is one of those characters that you can’t help but root for, even when she’s doing something completely idiotic. I just wanted her to be happy, to finally break away from the confines of her family and do what she wanted for a change. That’s the thing about this story. You can’t fault Annie for anything that she does, because she’s never experienced anything. Her overbearing father kept her from learning basic life skills, like not going off alone with random boys when she’s drunk. And the more that her friends didn’t understand, the more that I sympathized with her. While I was in no way raised under the same circumstances as Annie, I was pretty naive and innocent when I left home for college. It’s a learning experience, as much for how to be an adult as it is for academic knowledge.
So, like I mentioned, I loved Annie. I also loved Cami and Ryan. Chris, eh. He kind of annoyed me from the beginning. But overall, this book was really good. I started reading at 9pm and figured I’d just read a few chapters before going to bed. Well, next thing I knew, it was 1am and I was done. Done, and dying for more.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy.
For my 2015 reading challenge, I’m crossing off #41: a book by an author you’ve never read before.
Final rating:
★★★★☆
The Bibliophagist 