An exciting debut contemporary young adult novel perfect for fans of Rainbow Rowell and Mary H. K. Choi Grace Welles had resigned herself to the particular loneliness of being fifteen and stuck at a third-tier boarding school in the swamps of Florida, when she accidentally saves the new kid in her class from being beat up. With a single aim of a slingshot, the monotonous mathematics of her life are obliterated forever…because now there is this boy she never asked for. Wade Scholfield. With Wade, Grace discovers a new way to exist. School rules are optional, life is bizarrely perfect, and conversations about wormholes can lead to make-out sessions that disrupt any logical stream of thoughts. So why does Grace crush Wade’s heart into a million tiny pieces? And what are her options when she finally realizes that 1. The universe doesn’t revolve around her, and 2. Wade has been hiding a dark secret. Is Grace the only person unhinged enough to save him? Acidly funny and compulsively readable, Mercedes Helnwein’s debut novel Slingshot is a story about two people finding each other and then screwing it all up. See also: soulmate, friendship, stupidity, sex, bad poetry, and all the indignities of being in love for the first time.
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I really, really wanted to like this book. It had all the elements that I usually love – boarding school setting, a good love interest that genuinely felt three dimensional, and a strong MC narrator. I had hopes for this book going in, and was pretty disappointed in what I found.
First off, we’re introduced to the MC and narrator, Gracie. It’s immediately established from page 1 that this fifteen/sixteen year old girl (I was stunned to find out later she’s only 15 at the beginning) is “in love” with her biology teacher. The voice seemed immature and condescending to all the other students, calling them a “raging hormonal bloodbath that was the majority of life at school”. Now, I’ve never been to a boarding school, but I was recently a teenager, and I definitely wouldn’t call it that. Another time she says she considers the students “juvenile and moronic in their pursuit of amusement,” which sounds especially harsher when you realize she’s simply talking about the dormitory common room crowded with students. Gracie seemed to take the “I’m not like other girls” trope to the extremes. She trashes on girls who eat more than salads and talks about “always eating the wrong meal.” Basically, it felt like reading some giant high school stereotype.
We’re supposed to root for her and the love interest, but I just could not get behind her decisions. I won’t spoil anything, but the choices she makes had me so annoyed I almost felt that the love interest deserved someone more respectful of his time.
NOW, this being said, I did read the entire book because the love interest, Wade, was written very well. He had a tragic backstory that slowly revealed and seemed like a genuine person that I was rooting for more than the actual MC. I loved his character and needed to find out what happened in the end.
Overall, I feel like the synopsis of this story was a tad misleading. Some of the events mentioned are glossed over, and a big part of the synopsis only happens at the very end. I was let down by the ending and felt slightly betrayed in where it had been leading to. The witty banter and Wade’s character were the key points of this novel, thus my 1 star.
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