Review + Playlist: The Promise of Amazing

The Promise Of Amazing

by Robin Constantine

Publisher: Balzer + Bray

Release Date: December 31st, 2013

Wren Caswell is average. Ranked in the middle of her class at Sacred Heart, she’s not popular, but not a social misfit. Wren is the quiet, “good” girl who's always done what she's supposed to—only now in her junior year, this passive strategy is backfiring. She wants to change, but doesn’t know how.

Grayson Barrett was the king of St. Gabe’s. Star of the lacrosse team, top of his class, on a fast track to a brilliant future—until he was expelled for being a “term paper pimp.” Now Gray is in a downward spiral and needs to change, but doesn’t know how.

One fateful night their paths cross when Wren, working at her family’s Arthurian-themed catering hall, performs the Heimlich on Gray as he chokes on a cocktail weenie, saving his life literally and figuratively. What follows is the complicated, awkward, hilarious, and tender tale of two teens shedding their pasts, figuring out who they are—and falling in love.

This book promised something pretty amazing (at least to me, the Cinderella-esque premise of the sweet poor girl and bad rich boy romance never gets old), and I write this review with a relatively simple message: it delivered its promise. 

But, one thing for sure, it most definitely didn't go the way I expected. I was readying myself for a sweet, fluffy tale of first love with little emotional strings attached on my part, and expecting the most complicated thing in the story to be the Arthurian-themed catering hall which Wren worked at. It went the exact opposite way. The backstory of Grayson was dark, bordering on the gritty, with many surprising nuggets of information that were thrown onto my path as we went along. The complications along the way were not only numerous, but also, extremely real troubles that made their love much more tumultuous but gratifying for me since I love me some good drama.

As for Wren, while her character arc certainly was solid, Grayson's parts of the story (the novel was in two P.O.V.s) stood out more for me, hands-down. Much of Grayson's history before he met Wren made this novel so much more than just a regular contemporary romance, his growth into a boy that Wren could be proud of was heartwarming-- it included coming to terms with his divorced parents, his friends (goodness, Luke was one hell of a character) and perhaps, some sort of closure for his multiple identities as a brain, an athlete and a criminal.

More than all of the above, at the end of this book, I chose to see it as a strange sort of discourse on modern teenage love: There's no one convenient time for falling in love. Sometimes, it just happens. It's quick, redolent of insta-love. Yet, at the same time, it's intense, gorgeous and beautifully alive. 

As we watch Wren and Grayson amble into a fragile love built on rocks, we know that their ending would be a happy one. That's the solace of reading books like that. 

There's always the promise of something amazing. And for me, that's more than enough.

I think everything about you is amazing, Grayson Barrett. -- Page 100, Uncorrected E-Proof

I'd go anywhere for you, Wren. -- Page 140, Uncorrected E-Proof

Source: From the Publisher (HarperCollins) for review purposes 

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A Playlist (in chronological order; once you've read it, you would know where each song fits, hopefully)

1. Catch My Breath Kelly Clarkson (here)
2. Try P!nk (here)
3. Promise Me Beverley Craven (here)
4. Let Me Love You Glee (here)
5. Say Something A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera (here)
6. Unconditionally Katy Perry (here)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robin Constantine is a born and bred Jersey girl who moved down South so she could wear flip-flops year round. She spends her days dreaming up stories where love conquers all, well, eventually but not without a lot of peril, angst and the occasional kissing scene. 

Her YA debut, THE PROMISE OF AMAZING, will be released in 2014 by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

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Lots of love,
Sel