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Review: Defending Taylor

Defending Taylor Defending Taylor by Miranda Kenneally
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book legitimately felt too short. People always whine about books being too short because of how much they liked said books, but this was just... Not enough happened. At one point I noticed my Kobo said I was at 80% and I was like, no, that can't be right. I literally didn't believe it, it must be wrong, there's no way it's already almost over. But it was, and then it ended, and this was me:

What.

And now here we are. I always love when it feels like SO many things happen in a book, but I had never experienced the opposite.

Not saying this was boring. I was never bored. I actually don't even know exactly what kept compelling me to keep reading, but let me tell you I sure was compelled. I think it was the soccer aspect, actually. Speaking of--

So you want to read a soccer novel? MOVE ALONG! This ain't no soccer novel, alright? Defending Taylor is about Taylor, a girl who makes a decision that kinda frigs up her life a bit. She plays soccer in school, and we see her play one game, but that's it. It's really about the implications and consequences of the aforementioned decision. Considering this, the cover is absolutely terrible. It puts complete emphasis on soccer. So people who aren't into soccer will be put off by it, and people who want to read a soccer novel will leave bitterly disappointed. Do you know what bitterly disappointed do? Leave negative reviews. Good job marketing team, or whoever decided on that cover.

I think is is gonna be one of those forgettable books. I'm actually struggling to remember what happened, and as we'll recall there's not even that much to remember.

There's drama regarding "the incident" (my own dub, they don't call it that in the book) which is fun to read about. Not fun for Taylor, but fun for me. The soccer match we do see was also fun, and made me excited to read more, which never came. I notice sports books keep leaving me with my pants down like this. Luckily the general life drama kept me generally satisfied, which is good since that was the entirety of the rest of the book.

Let's not forget that this is also a romance novel. Romance is a decently big part of it, and I think it was executed in a pretty good way. There's no, "I notice a cute guy around my age," which is the UNIVERSALLY KNOWN sentence that means THEY GONNA FUCK BY THE END OF THE NOVEL (BUT PROBABLY EVEN SOONER, WINKY FACE. LOOKIN AT YOU BREATHE ANNIE BREATHE). A lot of books do this. They introduce a new character and you INSTANTLY know that they're going to be the love interest and I'm honestly so over it. Kenneally didn't do that in this book, yay! It actually looked like she was going to do it near the beginning there, but we dodged that bullet, phew.

So the actual romance itself was alright. I mean I enjoyed reading it but it didn't give me any emotions or anything. I don't want to say too much about it for fear of spoilers. Let's just say I appreciated that there were... Multiple aspects? (view spoiler)

This is my second Kenneally book and although I may not sound like it, I enjoyed myself. She has good themes in her books, and I like which issues she chooses to adress. The main theme of Defending Taylor is about finding the balance between hard work and living life/having fun. It also has Taylor questioning what she wants to do with her life, which is something a lot of teenagers will be able to relate to, and something I personally appreciated reading about.

Something that especially resonated with me was when it was revealed that one of the characters is dyslexic. Said character had noticed something off their whole life, but just noticed what was up. But when they confronted their parents with this their parents completely rejected the thought that their child is "defected". The parents told them they're not dyslexic, that they're just lazy and to not talk to anyone about this. So instead of getting help and support so they could succeed, they were forced to keep their dyslexia to themselves. This is literally me right now, except with ADHD. Word for word.

So yeah, *cough* anyway.

It was an alright book. It wasn't bad, but it was no where near blowing me away either. I kinda would recommend it to teenagers though, because it has some good themes and values in it. (view spoiler)

I received an e-ARC of this novel from Sourcebooks via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.


Click to read my other Hundred Oaks Reviews:
Breathe, Annie, Breathe
Defending Taylor*
Coming Up for Air

*Current review



===========================

Pre-Read Review:
Kenneally's new book Defending Taylor is coming out July 5th this year, and it's about soccer!!!! Godbless.

*Edit*
I got accepted for an e-ARC of Defending Taylor which literally made me start squealing in the middle of class when I read the acceptance e-mail. So look forward to my review on that.

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