Just Like You Said it Would Be
C.K. Kelly Martin
Publication date: February 15th 2017
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Did you ever want something so much that it felt like a kind of sickness, one you didn’t want to be cured of? On New Year’s Eve the feeling compels seventeen-year-old Amira to text the Irish ex-boyfriend she’s been missing desperately since they broke up at the end of summer, when she returned to Canada.
They agreed they wouldn’t be friends, that it would never be enough. But that was then— back when Amira’s separated parents had shipped her off to relatives in Dublin for the summer so they could test-drive the idea of getting back together on a long haul cruise. Back when Amira was torn away from a friend in need in Toronto only to fall in love with a Dublin screenwriting class and take a step closer to her dream career. And only to fall for cousin Zoey’s bandmate, Darragh, the guy who is first her friend, then her enemy and later something much more complicated—the guy she can say anything to, the guy who makes every inch of her feel wide awake in a way she hadn’t known was possible. The guy she might never see again. Or is there, despite the distance, somehow still a chance for them?
My Review:
Amira’s parents decide to take a cruise in order to see if
they could patch up their relationship/marriage before they call it quits. So
they send Amira to Ireland to spend the summer with her Aunt and Uncle and her
cousin Zoey. Of course Amira doesn’t want to go to Ireland to stay with people
she has only seen a few times in her life she wants to stay at home with her
friend Joss in Canada. Besides Joss’ brother is on trial for dui and hitting a
woman and Amira wants to be there for her.
While in Ireland Amira meets Darragh a member of Zoey’s
band. Amira likes Darragh from the beginning but she knows they can never be a
couple since she sees him kissing a different girl almost every weekend. Darragh’s
relationships are kind of complicated which he has a hard time dealing with as
he has a great big heart.
Darragh’s relationships with other girls is not their only
problem as Amira is only seventeen and her parents will not let her date
Darragh when she returns home. Amira doesn’t want to have a long distance relationship
anyways as she doesn’t think it would ever work out and it would be too hard.
Amira is a very mature girl in lots of ways as she does
abide by her parent’s wishes to not see Darragh when she returns home. I mean
she could have told Darragh to come visit her and she would sneak out some how
to see him but she didn’t and she also knew that it would be hard on both of
them living so far apart to have a relationship.
But what I don’t get is why they didn’t discuss the fact
that she would be eighteen in year and then she could legally do as she wished
and would need her parent’s permission? I mean at eighteen she could walk into
a bar legally order an alcoholic beverage so why could she not date who she
wanted?
When I read the summary of Just Like You Said it Would Be I
knew I had to read it and I wasn’t disappointed. I am so glad I decided to take
the plunge and dived right in. Just Like You Said it Would Be was the perfect
example of a coming of age story. If you like to read about teenage love and
coming of age stories then you will love Just Like You Said it Would Be.
Author Bio:
Long before I was an author I was a fan of books about Winnie the Pooh, Babar, Madeline, Anne Shirley and anything by Judy Blume. Throughout high school my favourite class was English. No surprise, then, that most of my time spent at York University in Toronto was as an English major--not the traditional way to graduate with a B.A. in Film Studies but a fine way to get a general arts education.
After getting my film studies degree I headed for Dublin, Ireland and spent the majority of the nineties there in forgettable jobs meeting unforgettable people and enjoying the buzz. I always thoughts I'd get around to writing in earnest eventually and I began writing my first novel in a flat in Dublin and finished it in a Toronto suburb. By then I'd discovered that writing about young characters felt the freshest and most exciting to me. You have most of your life to be an adult but you only grow up once.
Currently residing near Toronto with my Dub husband, I became an Irish citizen in 2001 and continue to visit Dublin as often as I can. My first young adult book, I Know It's Over, came out with Random House in September 2008 and was followed by One Lonely Degree, The Lighter Side of Life and Death, My Beating Teenage Heart and Yesterday. I released Yesterday's sequel, Tomorrow, in 2013 and put out my first adult novel, Come See About Me, as an ebook in June 2012. My most recent YA book, The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing, was published by Cormorant Books' Dancing Cat Books imprint in 2014 and I'm pleased to announce they'll be releasing my upcoming contemporary young adult novel, Delicate, on September 16th. Watch my website for more details!
