Another big thank you to Mathildehoegfor sending me “Trouble” in my CBR book exchange! It’s on my to-read list for the next installment of the MFA and even though I’m not usually a YA fan (especially non-fantasy YA), I was pleasantly surprised by this book.
It gives nothing away for me to tell you that the main female, Hannah, pretty much begins the book as a pregnant fifteen-year-old, and is feeling, you know, overwhelmed, distraught and basically like any woman finding out about an unplanned pregnancy.
I started with some eye-rolling initially because how many times has this plot been done? But I was pleasantly surprised as I read through this because Ms. Pratt does an excellent job at really getting into the minds of her characters and making them ‘real’.
Yes, this book deals with typical teen issues, and yes, since it’s written from the POV of two fifteen-year-olds, it can get a little dramatized sometimes, but I think that’s part of its beauty. Ms. Pratt does a great job of juxtaposing the petty dramas of teenage life with the adult issues of pregnancy, a degenerating family life, depression and other serious matters.
It’s incredibly true-to-life for a lot of young people out there, and even though I was never a teenager who did any of the things Hannah gets into during the novel, I found her feelings and emotions relatable.
I also really related to the male protagonist, Aaron. Oddly, I find this to be the case often in books where we get the perspectives of both male and female voices. I don’t know what that says about me, being that I’m a thirty-year old woman, but I found Aaron to be a lot more likable than Hannah. It may be because Aaron’s basically a nerd and that’s my people, while Hannah’s the party girl and if there’s one thing I don’t get it’s drunk partying. On the whole I find Hannah to be a bit whinny and Aaron to be less so. Although, the one issue I had with the writing style was that sometimes Aaron and Hannah’s narrative style sound very similar and I had to go back and check a few times to remember which person’s story I was currently in.
Other than that, I think this is a great YA. It’s a fast read, the characters are mostly enjoyable, and it’s totally worth your time!