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.
