Thanks for the Trouble by Tommy Wallach

After We All Looked Up was one of my favourite books of last year, its safe to say that this was by far one of my most anticipated releases for 2016.  I grabbed this one almost as soon as it came out, excited to finally see if it could live up to my expectations whilst also being scared it wouldn't; which is likely one of many reasons why I actually ended up putting off reading this till just last week, when I finally brought up the courage to read it.  Luckily this ended up not only meeting my expectations, but entirely exceeding them as I adored this book and everything about it.  

This one follows our main character of Parker, who hasn't spoken in five years, as he meets a silver haired girl in a hotel, who has quite a few secrets up her sleeve.  Firstly, I adored all the characters in this, particularly are two main leads.  Parker was such great narrator and I loved reading about their adventures through his eyes, but what I found made me love him even more was the fact that he was flawed and so by no means a perfect character.  He was realistic and had a unique personality that made me easily fall in love with him almost instantly, and grew as a character as the book progressed, something which I always like seeing.

Onto the second key character, Zelda, who was a completely different character who brought something else to the story.  She was such a mysterious character who, had it not been for the way she was narrated, could have been seen as irritating, but instead came across as simply someone who was her own person, and who even seemed slightly broken at times as well, which just helped to add to the mystery and relatability of her.  I also adored the whole idea of her true past being hidden from us, and us never really knowing whether she was being truthful or whether it was simply a facade she had created.

One aspect that made this book a little different was how short a time space it took place in.  From the first page to the last section, the majority of the story only spans over three days, which I found actually worked really well to make the story feel that little bit more magical than it otherwise would have.  It never felt as if anything was being crammed in or unrealistic and really well mimicked the idea of it feeling as though so much time has passed and as if you have known someone for so long when it reality little time has passed at all.

Moving onto another key aspect, I absolutely adored the plot and storyline of this.  The whole thing just flowed so seamlessly together and at no point felt like it slowed down or dipped.  I also love how simplistic the plot was whilst still feeling quite unique, with it being composed of alot of smaller events that all tied beautifully together and followed a central storyline without constantly reminding you off it.

One thing that I hoped, if nothing else, I would love was the writing of this one.  Thankfully it was just as beautifully written and narrated as We All Looked Up and so I once again fell in love with it as it kept me turning the pages whilst also making me wish I wasn't getting through it so fast because I honestly just wanted to read it forever!

Finally, one of my favourite things about this book was its ending.  Throughout the book, you could almost feel all these adventures and events slowly building towards this last big end that, whilst it was intentionally predictable, worked so well and ended the story in completely the right way.  I loved how it kept true to characters and stayed realistic and honestly just tied things together in the best way possible.

So, if you haven't already guessed it, I completely adored this book.  I loved the story, the characters and the writing so much, and can already say it is most definitely one of my favourites of this year.  If you haven't already checked this out and are a contemporary fan then I can't recommend this one enough - it truly is amazing!

Favourite:

Character - Alana

Scene - Fight in the cinema

Quote - Love is nothing more than a fortuitous collision of circumstances

Maybe the closest thing we mortals get to magic is just change

Relate a:

Song - Diet Soda Society - The Maine 
Other Book - Nick and Norahs Infinite Playlist by David Levithan

Rating - 
5/5

Have you read this one - what did you think?