Review: Ditched by Robin Mellom

Title: Ditched: A Love Story
Author: Robin Mellom
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Release date: January 10th 2012
Pages: 277
Genre: Young Adult contemporary romance
Source: Bought
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High school senior Justina Griffith was never the girl who dreamed of going to prom. Designer dresses and strappy heels? Not her thing. So she never expected her best friend, Ian Clark, to ask her.
Ian, who always passed her the baseball bat handle first.
Ian, who knew exactly when she needed red licorice.
Ian, who promised her the most amazing night at prom.
And then ditched her.
Now, as the sun rises over her small town, and with only the help of some opinionated ladies at the 7-Eleven, Justina must piece together — stain by stain on her thrift-store dress — exactly how she ended up dateless. A three-legged Chihuahua was involved. Along with a demolition derby-ready Cadillac. And there was that incident at the tattoo parlor. Plus the flying leap from Brian Sontag's moving car...
But to get the whole story, Justina will have to face the boy who ditched her. And discover if losing out at prom can ultimately lead to true love.

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I'm not sure what to make of this book. There were some aspects I really enjoyed, but most of it just left me feeling underwhelmed. And honestly, I think it's just because I'm getting too old for these types of books - I feel bad for judging the book when I didn't enjoy it because I'm not the right age group, but overall, I just felt very meh about it.

I started out liking the set-up of this novel. Justina tells the reader about her night as she is telling these two ladies at the 7-11 how she got stranded there, so we alternate between chapters taking place the night before at prom and the morning after at the 7-11. Each chapter talking about what had happened the night before starts by Justina pointing out one of the stains on her dress or bruises or anything else she got that night. At first, I thought that set-up was cute - it makes for a fast-paced and entertaining style. After a while, though, I started getting annoyed by it. Especially the stain thing got repetitive and annoying, and it just felt very contrived to me. I also didn't see the reasoning behind the order of the descriptions - in the beginning, I got the impression that Justina didn't remember the events of the night, but she actually remembers everything, which made the many small stories seem kind of random and unnecessarily drawn-out.

The characters are okay. Justina is a fully-developed character, and she's definitely unique. There were times I could relate to her, but there were also times where she got on my nerves; there's things she's just very opinionated about. The secondary characters are fun, but that's really all there is to them - they're not very dynamic or realistic characters, and their craziness was just a little much sometimes.

What bugged me most about the story, though, was that it has a very immature feel to it. I'm not even sure why - the story is just too predictable and cheesy for me, and I think it would've worked better for younger readers. The preachiness also bugged me - every time things like drinking and smoking are addressed, it's done so in a very melodramatic and preach way. There are some undertones of slut-shaming, too, that didn't sit right with me. But again, maybe it would have worked better for younger readers.

All of that said, there is one thing I really enjoyed about Ditched, and that is the humor. Yes, it may be overdone and a little too crazy at times, but it's definitely funny. The novel had me laughing out loud - no matter if it's better suited for a younger audience, it entertained me for the short time I spent with it, and that's  all I can ask for, really.