Title: Our Song
Author: Jordanna Fraiberg
Published: May 2, 2013
Publisher: Razorbill/ Penguin
Pages: 352
Source: borrowed
Goodreads Summary: Olive Bell has spent her entire life in the beautiful suburb of Vista Valley, with a picture-perfect home, a loving family, and a seemingly perfect boyfriend. But after a near-fatal car accident, she’s haunted by a broken heart and a melody that she cannot place.
Then Olive meets Nick. He’s dark, handsome, mysterious . . . and Olive feels connected to him in a way she can’t explain. Is there such a thing as fate? The two embark on a whirlwind romance—until Nick makes a troubling confession.
Heartbroken, Olive pieces together what really happened the night of her accident and arrives at a startling revelation. Only by facing the truth can she uncover the mystery behind the song and the power of what it means to love someone.
Goodreads average rating: 3.69
- Christina loved the idea of the book, but found it difficult to connect to the protagonist. This goes on her bottom shelf.
**Special Note:** My KP, Stacee from the wonderfully fabulous Adventures of a Book Junkie, let me borrow her ARC of this title. All quotes and opinions will be of this version and not from the published edition. (Also, let it be noted that my general “meh mood ” of this particular novel shouldn’t be reflected on her. She hadn’t read it when she loaned it to me, so it wasn’t a recommendation from her.)
The Lowdown: Even from the somewhat vague summary, you can easily gather that Olive Bell is a privileged girl who is accustomed to the upper-class of wealth treatment. All was going well in her life until she got into a car accident that almost killed her. The book starts off with Olive coming home from the hospital, and her once picturesque family isn’t quite the same as it used to be. Her mom is pushy and shadowing Olive because she- and possibly everyone else in the neighborhood- thinks she might be suicidal. Even though the events of the night are a bit murky (Or are they?) for Olive aside from the argument she had with her boyfriend, she knows she didn’t want to kill herself. Her dad is working strange hours and coming in the wee hours of the morning. Then there’s the matter of Derek, her boyfriend or possibly her ex, seeing as he never even bothered to visit or call her while she was recovering in the hospital.
So, aside from the family and boyfriend issues, Olive has her own internal drama related to the fact that she technically died in the car accident and only survived because the paramedics resuscitated her. Now, she feels different and there’s a haunting melody creeping in and it’s slowly starting to suffocate her. She can’t figure out what it means or how she knows it, but know it holds some significance. Eventually Olive seeks out a peer counseling group who have dealt with near-death experiences, both to assuage her mom and possibly to help herself. It’s here that she meets Nick- a lot tortured, a real thrill-seeker, and a bit swoony.
It’s through her interactions with him and their adventures that she learns about what an “honest” love looks like and that you have to love yourself before you can love anyone else.
My Thoughts: I have many, but I can’t really find the words to release them from the prison in my brain. I wanted to be immediately drawn in because I’m a sucker for fate, especially when its tied to love, but that wasn’t the case with this book. When I wasn’t battling my boredom from the slowly crafted story-line, I was irritated with the protagonist. I never really was able to connect with Olive, and her need to fill the space in her heart with a love for any guy proved to be quite frustrating. She was the type of girl–always in love (with the wrong guy)– that made me shake my head and roll my eyes in high school. I couldn’t understand her obsession with Derek at all, but then the way she turned around and thought about forever with Nick was just as disturbing.
Pacing: Sluggishly slow. I set the book down at least twenty times in the first 100 pages because it never held my interest. It picked up a little after she met Nick, but I never was so caught up in their story to continually flip through the pages. There were many breaks.
Swoons: When Nick wasn’t closing himself off, I thought he was a bit swoony. He definitely had his moments with his English charm and snark.
Cover Love: Gah, I loved the cover! It was the whole reason I truly wanted to read the book, which made my disappointment over it being a dull read all the worse.
Verdict: It wasn’t the book for me, but it could be for someone else. The plot wasn’t necessarily unique, but it had the potential to be a better novel. If I were you, I’d borrow this from a friend or the library before I purchased. Don’t let the cute cover fool you like it did me.
