Nick and Sasha have a great little summer romance with a dose of sex thrown in with a good measure of awkward first-time clumsiness thrown in. But after Sasha breaks up with Nick (truth be told, he's a bit of an asshole -- so much so that some reader before me wrote as much in the margin of page 30!), Nick struggles with getting over her -- a problem which is exacerbated when Sasha announces that she is pregnant.
This is a finely written book but I was prejudiced against it because of an overenthusiastic publicity department. There is no worse deed that your publisher can do for you than to get one of my favorite authors (Lara Zeises) to write a blurb on the back of the book that compares this novel favorably with two of my other favorite authors (Sarah Dessen and John Green). Talk about setting uber-unrealistic expectations!
It is a very nice book and addresses rather sensitively the struggles that Nick goes through in a very believable and realistic fashion (this is one of those rare cases where I can speak with some authority that what Nick was thinking and going through rang true). Martin has a good feel for teenage sexuality and a better idea of how boys think that most female writers I have read. However, the book has very little in common with either Dessen or Green's works. For one thing, it lacks the humor and irony that are trademarks of those authors, and for another it lacks the poetry of their books. If you choose the read this book, ignore the hype. You will find plenty to like on its own merits.
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