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.

Character Book Picks by C.K. Kelly Martin (My Beating Teenage Heart Blog Tour)

Today we have C.K. Kelly Martin here for a guest post! This post is part of The Teen Book Scene's blog tour for My Beating Teenage Heart by C.K. Kelly Martin. You can find out more about the tour here. Make sure to visit all the other stops of the blog tour if you'd like to know more about My Beating Teenage Heart!

These are book recommendations from the characters of My Beating Teenage Heart.

Ashlyn – I fell in love with Jenny Han’s series that began with The Summer I Turned Pretty. I could never really pick whether I wanted Belly with Jeremiah or Conrad, they were both so loveable! Every one of Carrie Ryan’s Forest of Hands and Teeth series books kept me up reading all night too. Also, I read Let’s Get Lost by Sarra Manning four times. I love all her books but that one was my very favourite. My sister recommended this book called One Day (by David Nicholls) last summer and it became another of my favourites. I love the idea of seeing what Emma and Dexter’s relationship was like on a single day every year.

Breckon – Usually I like stuff that has a slight sci-fi or paranormal element to it. One of my favourite books is Charles Burns’ graphic novel Black Hole. It’s set in an alternate reality Seattle in the late 1970s where a STD causing weird physical mutations has broken out in a group of teenagers. Another fantastic graphic novel was The Last Man Volume 1 (by Brian K. Vaughan) about the only man left on earth after a plague kills all the others leaving an otherwise strictly female population. World War Z by Max Brooks, a book about a zombie apocalypse, was also really cool and I like a lot of Stephen King too – especially his classics, The Shining and Salem’s Lots. As far as realistic stuff goes High Fidelity by Nick Hornby was fantastic and Jules lent me this other great book called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.

Jules – High Fidelity by Nick Hornby (I borrowed it from Breckon – it’s one of his favourites too). The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky gets to me every time I read it. Other books I love and keep coming back to – Bringing up the Bones by Lara Zeises, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, and The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

Skylar – I like books with adventure and aliens the best, like Nim’s Island (by Wendy Orr) and Dude Where’s My Spaceship (by Dan Greenburg). I would love to be on a deserted island with cool animals just like Nim! Dude Where’s My Spaceship is so funny. There are lots of books about Klatu, Lek and Ploo and I love them all. Freckle Juice (by Judy Blume) and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis) were really good too. 

Make sure to check out all the other stops of the tour, and keep your eye out for My Beating Teenage Heart, which will be released September 27th 2011.

My Beating Teenage Heart by C.K. Kelly Martin
(Amazon / Goodreads)

Ashlyn Baptiste is falling. One moment she was nothing—no memories, no self—and then suddenly, she's plummeting through a sea of stars. Is she in a coma? She doesn't remember dying, and she has no memories of the life she left behind. All she knows is that she's trapped in a consciousness without a body and she's spending every moment watching a stranger.
Breckon Cody's on the edge. He's being ripped apart by grief so intense it literally hurts to breath. On the surface, Breckon is trying to hold it together for his family and his girlfriend, but underneath he's barely hanging on.
Even though she didn't know him in life, Ashlyn sees Breckon's pain, and she's determined to find a way help him. As her own distressing memories emerge from the darkness, she struggles to communicate with the boy who can't see her, but whose life is suddenly intertwined with hers.