Review on 99 Days by Katie Cotugno

99 Days

by Katie Cotugno

Genre: Romance

Publisher: Balzer + Bray (Harper Imprint)

Publication Date: April 2015

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Day 1: Julia Donnelly eggs my house my first night back in Star Lake, and that’s how I know everyone still remembers everything—how I destroyed my relationship with Patrick the night everything happened with his brother, Gabe. How I wrecked their whole family. Now I’m serving out my summer like a jail sentence: Just ninety-nine days till I can leave for college, and be done.

Day 4: A nasty note on my windshield makes it clear Julia isn’t finished. I’m expecting a fight when someone taps me on the shoulder, but it’s just Gabe, home from college and actually happy to see me. “For what it’s worth, Molly Barlow,” he says, “I’m really glad you’re back.”

Day 12: Gabe got me to come to this party, and I’m actually having fun. I think he’s about to kiss me—and that’s when I see Patrick. My Patrick, who’s supposed to be clear across the country. My Patrick, who’s never going to forgive me.

This review might contain spoilers. If you still want to read, you have been warned.

99 days is interesting title for a book that made me wonder ‘what is with the 99 days?’

Interesting—this turned out to be an utter letdown. I understand that the love triangle is the focus of the novel here but it doesn’t have to be awful. Molly may be my most unwanted book character ever. She is a hypocrite. The book is written in her perspective—journal-styled; I’m telling you it is a pain to even read it.

It is like forced listening to her firsthand and you know it were all lies. Awful. Hateful character.

The rest of the characters were pretty good at sucking. It’s just that I could not believe why Molly’s mother would even go write her daughter’s story, have it published to a book and even go to the extent of publicly announce it is based on her daughter’s experiences. Insensitive parent. All she cares about is to have sales. Horrible.

It’s like this book is all about how bad a person can be without even paving way to character development. That’s right! This does not even have character development. Sure, some characters turned a little bit nice for a moment, but not enough. This book is the literary evidence that Molly only knows how to repeat mistakes and sleep around. She only knows how to run when it gets bad. She only knows how to appear helpless and victim of bullying.

This is a romance-themed novel but when reading halfway through the book; I could not even see a single hint of love in it. All I see is absurdness and aggression.

I do not have any sort of prejudice against Katie. Honestly, I think she writes so well. It’s just that this book had been awful since the day she write Molly’s story.

I am not sure if I’ll recommend it but it’s best for romance readers to check it out and see for themselves, they might like it. As for the rest of you, skip it and look for something else.