Review: I Know It's Over by C.K. Kelly Martin

Title: I Know It's Over
Author: C.K. Kelly Martin
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Release date: September 23rd 2008
Pages: 244
Genre: Contemporary YA; romance
Source: Bought
Find out more: Amazon ; Goodreads

Goodreads description:

PURE. UNPLANNED. PERFECT. Those were Nick’s summer plans before Sasha stepped into the picture. With the collateral damage from his parents’ divorce still settling and Dani (his girl of the moment) up for nearly anything, complications are the last thing he needs. All that changes, though, when Nick runs into Sasha at the beach in July. Suddenly he’s neck-deep in a relationship and surprised to find he doesn’t mind in the least. But Nick’s world shifts again when Sasha breaks up with him. Then, weeks later, while Nick’s still reeling from the breakup, she turns up at his doorstep and tells him she’s pregnant. Nick finds himself struggling once more to understand the girl he can’t stop caring for, the girl who insists that it’s still over.

First sentence:

The first time Sasha lay spread across my bed, I felt like the world had changed.

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I've really been dreading writing this review. C.K. Kelly Martin is so sweet, and this is such a great idea (there are plenty of teen pregnancy books out there, but I don't think I've read one from the guy's point-of-view before), so I really wanted to like I Know It's Over, but I just couldn't get into it.

Don't get me wrong - this book is really well-written, a great example of showing instead of telling. The secondary characters are amazing. The family dynamics are great and so realistic, and I loved reading about Nick's relationship with each of his family members. Nick's friends are great characters, too - I really enjoyed reading about Nathan and Keelor and their relationship with Nick. They're great examples of the kind of friendships I'd like to see more often in YA; they're fully-developed characters and have their own problems, but they're still supportive to Nick, especially Nathan. I also liked the small sub-plot with Jillian, and I wish that would have been elaborated on more.

The main storyline, however, didn't work for me, probably because I just couldn't relate to Nick. He's not a bad character, he's just...okay. I don't even know why I didn't like him all that much, but I just couldn't feel for him. The same goes for Sasha - I didn't get her at all. I didn't get her motivations, and I couldn't feel for her, either. And since I couldn't relate to either of the main characters, their relationship didn't work for me, either.

The plot is... well, it's okay. I think Nick's feelings about Sasha breaking up with him got in the way of his feelings about the pregnancy. Maybe it's because this is written from the guy's perspective, but in my opinion, they don't consider their options enough. Both go back and forth in between thinking they can't have a baby and should get an abortion and thinking it would be wrong to get an abortion, but they never even consider adoption. Again, maybe it's because we read about everything from Nick's point of view and not Sasha's, but I would have liked to know some more about how they considered their options, how they made their decision, etc. Nick's feelings about all of it are described really well, but I would have wanted to know more about what actually happened.

I know my review sounds pretty negative, but I do think I Know It's Over is a good book - the writing and secondary characters are great. I, personally, couldn't relate to the main characters and therefore couldn't really get into the main storyline. But whether or not you relate to a character is different for everyone, and a lot of people have liked I Know It's Over a lot (including Courtney Summers, who definitely knows what she's talking about, much better than I do), so I do recommend this book, if just for the writing.