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Never Always Sometimes is a young adult book by Adi Alsaid. This was my first time reading Adi's works and I have to say Never Always Sometimes was much more emotional than I was expecting it to be. This book tugged on my heartstrings man. Never Always Sometimes is the story of Dave and Julia, two best friends. I loved that the story was broken up into a Dave section, then a Julia section, and then Dave and Julia sections. By giving the reader larger chunks of multiple chapters in a row of one perspective, rather than alternating every chapter, it really gives you a chance to get to know Dave and Julia's very different personalities.

Never Always Sometimes starts out right before Dave and Julia begin high school. They decide to make a list of "nevers". Things that they never want to do in high school. (you all know how much I love a good list.) Then the story jumps ahead to their senior year, and not much has changed. Dave and Julia are still best friends and they still consider themselves to be different than most of their peers. Never mind that fact that by wanting to avoid all stereotypes, they kind of became a stereotype themselves. (but then again, that is kind of how I see hipsters, so it was fitting for the kind of hipster vibe I was getting from Dave and Julia. But I digress.) Dave finds the list of Nevers when he was cleaning out his locker, and they decide to do a social experiment of sorts (first people in the history of high school to have this idea. I think ever.) and check off every item on their list. And that is the set up for Never Always Sometimes. Kind of cliche, kind of cute, lots of promise.

The great thing about Never Always Sometimes is the emotion that Adi Alsaid is able to evoke with his writing. He takes this cute, but a little cliche idea of a list of things to accomplish before high school with you best friend, and also secret crush, and turns it into a really poignant story of love heartbreak, friendship and growing up. I loved all the feels that Adi Alsaid was able to bring out in me. I was just expecting this to be a fun cute read. And it was, but it was also really heartbreaking. And happy. And nostalgic. Never Always Sometimes is so many things. There are things that I wanted to turn out differently, sure, but looking back on the book as a whole, I don't know that I would have changed anything. Never Always Sometimes is an imperfectly perfect and special read.


This review was originally posted on Book Briefs