Destination Unknown

2.5 stars.

Ultimately, I was disappointed. Her mom was really weird. The methods of punishing (by grounding and having things taken away) was stupid and ineffective. Essentially, her parenting style really alarmed and bothered me, and I was incredibly disappointed that this was never truly referenced. Sure, I get the whole, “I love you and want whats best for you and that's why I'm ultra-controlling and also I can't believe you're growing up so I'm trying to hold onto you by being way too in your face”. That's normal. That's fine, but ultimately I would have liked the resolution to NOT be one quick sentence and actually have some insight in the mothers growth as she learned she was being crazy. I do not believe we ever really got a resolution out of that, and it was disappointing. Because a big part of coming of age is learning how to process from a parent child relationship to one that will soon transition into what that is almost friend and friend. I like that the novel touched on the issue of respecting your parents while not following their desires/wishes for you, and that's really important for kids 16-20ish to know and learn how to do but ultimately this plot line was not followed through and it really took away from the story.

As a child of immigrants who was never grounded (I'm pretty sure being grounded is only an American thing) this book just further showed me that “grounding” is just about that most worthless stupid form of discipline I've ever encountered. While I understand “time-outs” because you can't reason with a 2 year old, I think an 18 year old is really logical and if her mother just sucked up her pride and talked to her instead of saying “stop talking back” a lot of the back and forth in the novel could have been prevented. AGAIN, it is understandable because of the growing pains of Whitney leaving the house, but I just would have liked to see this issue explored till the very end instead of basically ignored in the end.

Sorry for the mini-rant. This touched on a nerve for me a bit.

Anyway.....onto the Romance? Lol

I loved Taylor and his entire family and the texting and speaking in Spanish, very cute. I liked that they were friends first and their friendship was very believable and very sweet. All well done.

The faith aspect of the novel was...ok. Not deep enough by any means, and again could have been explored more.

This book was short to begin with, so I think adding like 50 pages to really flesh the issues out instead of focusing only on the romance would have made this book much stronger.