There’s nothing quite like a boatload of teen angst and crappy parents to make a good story (My thoughts on 99 Days by Katie Cotugno)

Let me start out by saying that while 99 Days by Katie Cotugno has been on the list of books that I’ve wanted to read for several months now, I originally wasn’t planning to review it any time soon. However, I was feeling bad about the fact that it took me so long to read First Time (Penny’s Story) by Abigail Barnette and write my review for the book; not to mention the fact that I’m currently in the process of reading A Game of Thrones. That’s definitely taking me a while since it’s: A) A very long book compared to all of the other books that I’ve reviewed so far B) I’ve been trying to do some research on the A Song of Ice and Fire book series to help me with writing my review, and C) I’m also trying to watch at least some of the first season of Game of Thrones before I write my review for the book and post it.

I’m definitely putting a lot more time and work into my whole process for reading A Game of Thrones and writing my review for that book than I have for all of my other book reviews at this point in time. Obviously, taking a break from reading A Game of Thrones for several days in order to read and review 99 Days is counterproductive to my finishing A Game of Thrones, but I really was feeling bad about not having reviewed more books by this point in time. I decided to read and review 99 Days now, because I figured that it would be a quick and enjoyable book to read and review; that being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I definitely have mixed feelings about 99 Days. On the one hand, I felt like the story was rather cliché in some ways, and there were times when the whole Gabe/Molly/Patrick love triangle that 99 Days was centered around was a little exasperating. The backstory of what happened before Molly left town, and what things were like for her throughout most of the book reminded me a lot of Gossip Girl and the way the show began. If you’ve never watched Gossip Girl, it’s a teen drama about teenagers that pretty much all live on the Upper East Side of New York City. The show began with Serena returning to the Upper East Side from her self-imposed exile under somewhat mysterious circumstances. She originally left the Upper East Side after she slept with Nate, who was her best friend, Blair’s, boyfriend, and things weren’t smooth sailing when she first returned. Going back to 99 Days, because the backstory between Molly, Gabe and Patrick reminded me of Gossip Girl in some ways, I felt like the book was kind of lacking in originality. While 99 Days wasn’t the most original story in the world, it was still a very enjoyable book. Plus, Molly is a pretty likable protagonist for the most part, even though she did frustrate me at times.

Aside from the fact that I’m 28 now, one of the reasons why I’ve become somewhat wary of reading books in the YA genre is the fact that I often find the protagonists in YA books to be rather frustrating, annoying and unlikable, which is usually due to bad writing. For example, while I don’t think that Stephenie Meyer is a terrible writer, she’s definitely not the best writer in the history of writing, which is one of reasons why I think Bella Swan had a tendency to be an incredibly annoying and frustrating protagonist at times throughout the Twilight Saga, but especially when it came to New Moon, which has always been my least favorite book in the Twilight Saga, but I digress.

Thankfully, Molly is a very likable character for the most part. Don’t get me wrong, there were times when Molly made mistakes and really frustrated me. Molly is a runner, both in an athletic sense and in an emotional sense. As soon as the truth about what happened between her and Gabe came out, she left town, which I can kind of understand why she did that, but it also made her seem kind of cowardly for doing that. I really wish that Molly had stood up for herself more than she did most of the time throughout the book. However, it’s important to remember that she’s human and she isn’t perfect, so she’s obviously going to make mistakes sometimes, and she’s also not always going to be full of self-confidence.

While I liked Molly, as well as Patrick and Gabe, I didn’t like Molly’s adoptive mother at all. Personally, I thought it was an incredibly shitty thing of Molly’s mother to do, betraying Molly’s trust by using very intimate details of Molly’s life that Molly had confided in her about as inspiration for her new book. While I thought that that alone was a pretty terrible thing for Molly’s mother to do, she made it even worse by telling everybody that the book was inspired by Molly’s life, which subsequently led to Molly becoming a social pariah at school. The thing that upset me the most about Molly’s mother doing that was the fact that she didn’t seem to feel any shame or remorse for her actions and all of the problems that it caused Molly. She seemed to rationalize it by saying that she’s a writer and drawing from real life is what writers do. It didn’t even seem to occur to her that it wasn’t her life and her own experiences that she was drawing from; it was Molly’s life and Molly’s experiences. It was pretty messed up of her to exploit Molly’s personal life to “cure” her writer’s block and profit from it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that all of the blame for all of the fallout that Molly had to deal after the truth about her having slept with Gabe when he’s Patrick’s brother came out should be placed on Molly’s mom. However, I still thought that it was a pretty despicable thing for Molly’s mom to do, using details about Molly’s personal life to “cure” her writer’s block and profit from it. One of the biggest problems that I have with this book is that there’s never any huge confrontation or fight between Molly and her mom about her violating Molly’s trust like she did. Perhaps the reader is supposed to assume that Molly had a big fight with her mom when the scandal first broke and she decided to leave town and go to boarding school prior to the events that took place in 99 Days, but it really bugs me that we never get to see anything like that or get any kind of confirmation that there was ever a moment like that between them.

There are a few heated conversations between Molly and her mom throughout the book, but most of the book focuses on Molly’s relationships with Gabe and Patrick, the way her classmates treat her as a result of the whole scandal and the time that she spends at work. Personally, I really would have liked for Molly’s mom to finally show some remorse and actually apologize for all of the trouble that she had caused Molly by writing her book and telling everybody that the book was based on Molly’s life and something that had happened between Molly, Gabe and Patrick by the end of the book. Unfortunately, there was never any moment like that in the book.

Since Molly’s mom never showed any remorse for what she did, I felt like she gave Penny’s parents from First Time (Ian’s Story) and First Time (Penny’s Story) some major competition for being declared one of the worst fictional parents of the year. If I was Molly’s mom, I wouldn’t be too worried about making sure that she had an acceptance speech written in case she was named “Mother of the Year” any time soon. It’s really hard for me to decide whether or not I think Penny’s parents were worse or better parents than Molly’s mom was, because they all seem like terrible people to me, but I digress.

There’s definitely A LOT of slut shaming in this book, and I thought that Cotugno did a great job of portraying the double standard that exists in society sometimes that if a guy sleeps around with multiple women, then he’s a player and it’s celebrated, but if a girl sleeps around with multiple men, it makes her a whore or a slut. Gabe didn’t really face too much scrutiny or consequences for sleeping with Molly, even though she was his brother’s (Patrick) girlfriend. By his own admission, Molly faced the brunt of the ostracism that took place after the truth came out, and it should be noted that Gabe was also one of the few of Molly’s classmates that were nice to her throughout the book.

Aside from the fact that we live in a society where women can possibly face slut shaming if they sleep around with multiple men, I’m honestly a little baffled by the fact that almost all of Molly’s classmates seemed to care so much about what had happened between Molly, Gabe and Patrick and were so invested in harassing and bullying Molly simply because she had slept with Gabe. It wasn’t their life, and they had absolutely no reason to become so invested in everything happened between Molly, Gabe and Patrick, and the whole love triangle that existed between them. I really wish that Cotugno had done more to establish why Molly’s classmates seemed to care so much about the whole Gabe/Molly/Patrick love triangle/scandal, because there were a lot of times throughout the book where their behavior really seemed ridiculous to me.

I suppose you could chalk it up to her classmates wanting to be bullies, but their behavior still completely baffled me at times as I was reading the book. Perhaps if Cotugno had included some flashbacks that showed the immediate aftermath of the truth about Molly and Gabe having slept together becoming public knowledge, her classmates’ behavior would make more sense to me, and maybe it would have some more depth to it. However, the way it’s presented in the book, most of Molly’s classmates’ behavior towards her seemed incredibly ridiculous and idiotic to me, and it was definitely one of the weaker and more contrived aspects of the book, if you ask me.

There’s one spoiler regarding how everything between Molly and Gabe played out and the scandal that it caused also played out that I’m hesitant to give away. Suffice to say, there’s definitely a little bit of a reveal in the book that makes all of the crap and slut shaming that Molly had to put up with from her classmates even more frustrating to me than it was before the tidbit of information that I’m referring to was revealed. I really wish that Molly had stood up for herself more than she did, but at the same time, the fact that Molly didn’t always do the best job of standing up for herself is one of things that I felt made her feel so human and real as a character.

The ending of the book definitely wasn’t what I was expecting it to be like, but I suppose that’s a good thing when it comes to a story. It’s never fun to have a story end up being incredibly predictable. If I’m being honest, this whole book wasn’t what I was expecting it to be like before I read it. Based on the cover of the book alone, I was really expecting this to be a book about a teen romance that was all lovey dovey and for the most part a real feel good story. I figured that the title of the book being 99 Days was referring to there unfortunately being some kind of expiration date on the relationship and that the book was most likely was about a summer romance. I was right about the book taking place during the summer time though. However, Molly made it pretty clear that she kind of felt like she was serving a prison sentence and that she was literally counting down the days until she could leave town and go off to college, hence the title of the book being 99 Days. Plus, the overall tone of the book felt more angst ridden than anything else, as far as I’m concerned.

One of the things that I loved the most about 99 Days was the format of the story, with each chapter of the book depicting one day of the 99 days during which the book takes place. If you’re worried about the fact that the book is called 99 Days, meaning that there are 99 chapters, don’t worry. Some of the chapters are only a few sentences long, and I felt like the story moved at a fairly quick pace. Plus, I feel like labeling each chapter with what day it was, such as “Day 1” really added to the feeling that Molly felt like she was serving some kind of prison sentence throughout the course of the book.

All things considered, while 99 Days is definitely rather cliché and not the most original concept for a book in some ways, it was still a very enjoyable book to read. While I think that 99 Days was pretty average in terms of how I would compare it to other books in general, it was definitely a really good YA book. Molly, Gabe and Patrick are all very likable characters, and while Molly’s mom frustrated the hell out of me, she didn’t completely ruin the book for me. 99 Days definitely wasn’t what I was expecting it to be like at all, but I would still definitely recommend reading it, especially if you’re a fan of YA books.

That being said, my final score for 99 Days is 6 out of 10.