I won an advanced reader copy of this book in a Goodreads giveaway hosted by the publisher.
*this contains some spoilers but really why waste your time reading this book like I did*

I wish this book came with a reset button so that I could forget ever reading it. This book was just a long "That's Cringe" video. This book felt like a big joke and I was missing the punchline.

As a debut novel, this book needs a ton of work. Throughout my reading, I could think of several things that would make each scene better as I read cringey scene after cringey scene. This is an instance where I can separate the creator from their work. I've been watching Christine since 2014 when I first started my Booktube channel and got excited to read her novel as she posted her Book Writing videos.

Another problem was that I couldn't tell whether I was reading her journal entries or her blog. It would've been way better if the book was told in blog/letter format.

However, this book was just poorly written. There's a specific analogy that kept coming up and it makes no sense. How did anyone in editing not tell her, hey, this doesn't make sense!
"Do you like to play cards?”
“Do I like to play cards? Does a bear shit in the woods?”
…. *crickets*
If this was supposed to be humorous, I didn't laugh. It just makes no sense. They're two very opposite things.

Next, Shane was too much like Christine. Anybody who doesn't know Christine would pick this up and have no problems reading it. But, being familiar with Christine, her verbal language, interests, and personality I found it very difficult to separate Shane and Christine because they were the SAME PERSON. It would've been fine to add subtle references to her life and Booktube career, but I lost my mind as soon as Shane's blog (and eventual YouTube channel) was revealed to have the name, FrenchWatermelons19 - similar to Christine's channel name, Polandbananas20...This alone showed me that Christine lacks imagination if it's really that hard to come up with a name for a travel blog. Shane was a super confusing character (aside from the whole plot being confusing as well) and her "relationship" with Pilot (don't get me started on his name!! I will come back to this later) was forced and confusing. They didn't have any chemistry but by the end of the book yet they were forced to "do-over" their study abroad experience after six years and PILOT STILL HAD A GIRLFRIEND!!! Not like Shane cared about that anyway! Shane felt like the type of person who has never had a relationship, but since they watch a lot of TV and rom-com's they think that's how it is. If you're making your character someone who has never been kissed, I would like to see the cliche of her trying to perfect the perfect moment or something. I would’ve rather had the romance be Shane meeting a guy at her internship because the whole i’m in love with a dude I JUST MET (queue the scene where she’s walking to the grocery store the day they met and she asks herself if it’s a date….)


I know Christine is a quirky person, so it wasn't shocking when she decided to name the male protagonist, Pilot because Shane is a fan of TV. This is another instance where I began to think Christine lacks any imagination. You easily could've had his name be a name that also is the name of one of Shane's favorite TV characters. Every time I had to read the name, Pilot, I physically winced. ALSO WHERE IS HE FROM? The side characters lacked so much! I thought when you first meet your flatmates you have conversations. Does Christine/Shane not know how to have an actual conversation? Because it seems like it to me. I only knew small, specific details about them and her flatmates resembled Christine's IRL friends! It was blatantly obvious that Babe was supposed to be Natasha (Tashpolis) but fictional. It's fine to pay homage to your friends, but by using their name as a character NOT MAKING THEM THE CHARACTER BECAUSE THIS IS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER. I feel like Christine forgot she was writing a work of fiction.

I'm fine with adding pop culture references to your novel just to set the scene of circa January 2011. But, the book overflowed with pop culture references (Kelly Clarkson, HP Deathly Hallows Pt 2, Spotify launch in the U.S., etc.) but, this wasn't a historical fiction novel. It's just a contemporary novel set in 2011. Shane is even caught reading Shadow Kiss by Richelle Mead. You easily could've just written that she was reading a vampire romance book. But, I have to draw the line when you name a professor after a Cassandra Clare character, Blackstairs. At this point, I was saying, "you've got to be kidding me". Seriously, when is Ashton Kutcher going to come out and tell me that I'm being Punk'd?

Another qUirKy thing that Christine did was named Shane's laptop, Sawyer (a reference to Lost! We love references in this house apparently) and it took me 100 pages to realize that it was her laptop’s name and not an actual character…

Overall, this book needs A LOT of work. I got super pissed when I read part two and was transported back to the beginning of the book and I skimmed a lot. I will say I wanted more scenes at her internship, that fascinated me the most and I enjoyed reading that at the end. So, I understood why she added the time travel part for character development and all and it was a little bit interesting to see what she missed out on while she was being selfish. This just needed to be executed way better. I hope that Christine can take criticism because I know I'm not the only one who feels like this and make changes for her future novels.