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Save the Date by: Morgan Matson



Charlie can not wait for the upcoming weekend. Her older sister is getting married and for the first time in forever all of her siblings will be together in the same house. After years of not being with her siblings, Charlie wants this weekend to be absolutely perfect. It is their last chance to all be together in their childhood home before the house is sold off. Joking around with her siblings and spending time with them is the only thing that matters to Charlie. She can’t be bothered to think about what college she is going to or even the fact that her longtime crush is back in town. She is desperate to make the weekend perfect. So, of course, the weekend is an absolute disaster. The house alarm won’t stop going off, the papergirl is holding a grudge, there is an unexpected dog who loves to howl, the relatives are feuding, her favorite brother brought home an awful girl, the neighbor is bent on sabotage, the tuxedo can not be found, and the wedding planner’s nephew is cute to the point of distraction. Over the weekend, Charlie will learn more about her family than she has learned in the past 18 years. But will she continue to pine for the way things used to be with her family or will she move on with her life?

I started reading Save the Date at the perfect time. I had just finished stress re-reading a bunch of books that I love. I had took two exams so I was high on not being a big fat ball of stress. And prior to all of binge-reading or actually my binge re-reading, I was on a fantasy/sci-fi streak. Basically this book was a breath of fresh air from everything that I had been reading . So I liked this book way more than I may have had I read it along with other contemporary YA books. Don’t get me wrong, I have some problems with it but I am willing to overlook them because this was a great book.

First things first. The story is wholesome. It genuinely made me happy as I was reading it. I liked how contemporary this story is, especially because I have met a couple of families just like the Grants. The families weren’t as big of course but the way that they interacted with one another was very similar to some families that I have known. I thought that the family as a whole was very written because it was relatable but they also had those family inside jokes and the quirks that made them the Grants. Another thing that I liked was the fact that the book included some of the comics made by Charlie’s mother. I liked it because it was unexpected to me but also because of the relevance that the comics had to the story itself.

Another thing that I liked was that, even though this book has serious Sarah Dessen vibes to it, the romance was kept to a minimum. Teenage girls can go for very long periods of time without thinking of boys. And even if they are constantly thinking of boys, it doesn’t mean that they have to find the love of their life in high school. I just find that to be extremely ridiculous because it gives young girls dumb and frankly unrealistic ideas and expectations. Charlie was and is her own woman, she did not become dependent on any of the boys which I absolutely love. 

Moving on to things that bothered me, some of the plot points were a little too obvious. I was able to guess a major part of the ending quite early on and due to that I was just waiting for it to happen. But I was never tired of what was happening in the book. There was never a moment where I thought, “Ugh when are we going to get to the end, I’m so bored.” The buildup to the ending was spectacular. I would say that the ending was built up as well as a sci-fi or fantasy book is, especially the books that have a war going on or some sort of big showdown. It felt intense enough to be an escalation to some kind of war. The escalation kept me interested in the book and it kept me reading the book not wanting to miss anything. I could not stop reading the book.

Lastly, Charlie kinda bothered me a bit. She just seemed a little childish to me. I understand that she’s 18 but her “voice” never sounded like an eighteen year old. She sounded like she was much older maybe in her twenties. So, the “revelations” that she had were just dumb, it made no sense that someone as mature as Charlie still didn't know something that was this obvious. When she had her revelation, I literally said in my head, “How do you not know this already? You are so dumb, oh my god.” I feel like only a super-duper sheltered child would have the kind of revelations that she did at the age of eighteen. 

I'm going to have to give Save the Date 4 stars for two reasons. The first reason is the fact that I was able to predict the ending of this book pretty early on. The second reason is that Charlie as a character didn't seem like the sharpest tool in the shed, which put me off. The fact that she was unable to make some really basic connections implied to me that she was extremely sheltered and I couldn't relate to her. If it hadn't been for these two things I can easily see myself giving Save the Date 5 stars, but unfortunately my rating is going to be 4 stars.

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