This RITA® Reader Challenge 2017 review was written by LibrarianJessi. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Best First Book category.
The summary:
If anyone saw the prom boards Amelia Blanco makes on her favorite fashion app, they’d think Ethan Laurenti was her boyfriend. They wouldn’t know that all the plans she’s made for them are just dreams, and that she’s the girl who watches him from the kitchen while her parents cook for his famous family.
When Amelia’s abuelita enrolls her in a month-long fashion internship in NYC, Amelia can’t imagine leaving Miami–and Ethan–for that long. As soon as she gets to New York, however, she finds a bigger world and new possibilities. She meets people her own age who can actually carry on a conversation about stitching and design. Her pin boards become less about prom with Ethan and more about creating her own style. By the time she returns to Miami, Amelia feels like she can accomplish anything, and surprises herself by agreeing to help Ethan’s awkward, Steve-Jobs-wannabe brother, Liam, create his own fashion app.
As Liam and Amelia get closer, Ethan realizes that this newly confident, stylish girl may be the one for him after all . . . even though he has a reality TV star girlfriend he conveniently keeps forgetting about. The “new and improved” Amelia soon finds herself in between two brothers, a whole lot of drama, and choice she never dreamed she’d have to make.
Here is LibrarianJessi's review:
Although I used to mainline teen fiction like there was no tomorrow, I’ve largely taken a break for the last couple of years. This is partly because I spent the last two years reading 300+ adult fiction books while I served on a committee which I lovingly referred to as “My Crazy Ass Reading Committee” but which is properly known as The Reading List Committee. Reading Alterations, I was reminded of the other reason teen fic and I took a break: especially in contemporary teen fiction, I suddenly found myself empathizing with the parents more than the teens, which was shocking and made me feel ancient. I have to admit I suffered from this in Alterations too. I often found myself wanting to smack Amelia upside the head or sit her down for a long talk. Because of this odd tug-of-war between wanting to sink fully into the drama llama-ness of the story and my rational (apparently) adult brain offering distracting advice, my thoughts about the book are fairly split too. So, I’ve decided to resort to every Type A, detail-obsessed librarian’s favorite tool: The Pro/Con List.
Behold:
Things that really worked for me in Alterations:
- My number one favorite thing about this story was the grandmother/mother/daughter dynamic. Amelia lives with both her abuelita and her mother. Their relationship rings very true with lots of love, expectations, bickering, etc. It’s a complete miracle to have functional, living parents in teen fic, and I really appreciate authors that take the time to create them. Amelia’s relationship with the matriarchs in her life reminded me of Jane the Virgin, the best show on TV right now and the perfect show for every romance reader.
- Amelia’s passion for fashion (yeah I know, I couldn’t resist) is infectious. All the people in her life who love her support her and help her find the confidence to pursue her dreams. Her coming-of-age journey is quite excellent. And for days after finishing the book, I was plagued by the need to hang with Tim Gunn in Project Runway reruns.
- The story created a very positive message about finding your people. Amelia, like many of us, feels like a bit of a weirdo. But suddenly, she finds her fellow fashion people – “Isn’t it amazing how we’re all sort of loners in our regular worlds, but we come here and we all seem to fit”. The experience was not unlike what many of us experience here with the SBTB community. It’s magical and one of the most fundamental parts of growing up and learning to love the person you are.
- As a complete Broadway nerd, I have a slight (read: major) obsession with NYC. Amelia’s trip was an absolute armchair travel delight for me. The city comes alive through her eyes and I was all but drooling to visit again.
- Liam, Amelia’s very obvious OTP (one true pairing), is exactly my kind of hero. He’s nerdy and adorkable and even though it’s not his thing, he totally gets Amelia’s love of fashion and works really hard to help her find her full potential.
Things that really didn’t work for me in Alterations:
- While I appreciated the excellent job Scott did creating Amelia’s parentals, the story was lacking in the female friendship department. She did have girlfriends – both old and new – but often developing those relationships was sacrificed for other story elements. Often, the relationships or the friend characters fell a bit flat for me.
- It took Amelia too damn long to get over Ethan. Every time she went all googly eyed over him, I wanted to smack her. He was obviously a complete asshat and I had absolutely no patience for her obsession with him. Every time I thought she was making some headway getting over him (and noticing the adorableness that is Liam) she would backslide. There were many times I wanted to chunk the book across the room, but I was reading digital and didn’t want to harm my darling Kindle.
- Because it took her sooooooo long to see past Ethan, we didn’t get nearly enough of the puppy dog eyes and wooing with Liam. My heart hurt for him every time he was on page. He had it so bad and Amelia was just so oblivious. When they finally get to the HEA, I didn’t feel like the romantic groundwork was laid for the two of them and I also felt like Amelia owed him a bit more groveling.
In the end, my struggles with the romantic subplot outweighed my enjoyment of other parts of the story. I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more if the romance wasn’t there at all.
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I loved the Gayle Forman Just One books, but when i read Just One Day I remember vividly that I kept thinking, If that was MY DAUGHTER I would fecking KILL this little prick.
I’ve also stopped enjoying a lot of YA for similar reasons and in what felt like a remarkably short time period. In actuality though it’s been almost a decade and when did getting old happen so FAST?
This really sounds like an updating of Sabrina, but minus Audrey Hepburn wearing gorgeous clothes while Humphrey Bogart glowers at everyone.
Huh. I have also stopped reading YA when I used to inhale it and now that I think about it, it was for the same reason.
@SusanH, that’s exactly what I thought!
Great review Librarian Jessi, thanks.
The exact same thing happened to me over the last couple of years–my once-lush YA reading list has withered to a handful of books, while my grown-up fiction catalog has exploded. It really hit me when I was rewatching My So-Called Life and I was so much more interested in the parents than in Angela and Jordan, dreamy blue eyes notwithstanding.
Excellent review!! I really like your pro/con approach.
@SusanH– I was thinking the same thing! I wonder if it’s consciously intended to be a take on Sabrina, or if that trope is just sort of embedded in the collective consciousness.
It looks like this book was marketed as a Sabrina retelling, at least according to NetGalley:
https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/100102
I vaguely remember hearing about it when it was announced.
Great review! I feel like I’d have a lot of the same pros and cons – and I especially loved the part when you mention how SBTB is “finding our people.” So true 🙂
With my history, I would request a trigger warning before getting hit with how you sometimes want “to smack Amelia upside the head or sit her down for a long talk”.
The omission/inclusion undermines an otherwise illuminating review.
Shock aside, my reaction flows logically from the fact that I disagree on a fundamental point: particularly misguided or ‘messy’ behaviour on the part of underage characters always makes me suspect the standard of writing is slipping. Seen the slippage pattern in too many different contexts, from kids’ books to ensemble cast TV drama to doubt it.
I thought the book was very interesting because she had multicultural characterd. I also liked the strong bond with her grandmother. In each book, the author has go decide what characters to develop or the book would be too long. I give it an A.
@Lora – If I Stay/Where She Went are on my all time favorites list, but I’m with you on Just One Day – I really struggled with forgiving the hero.
@Megabrarian – I have no idea where where the time went. Now I understand why adults were always so shocked about how big I had grown as a kid – it was a startling reminder that they had somehow lost five years!
@Megan M. and @ Rose – Glad to know I’m not alone in this experience!
@SusanH and @Donna Marie – Love the Sabrina connection. Thanks for adding it.
@Zyva – I apologize for the violent language and thank you for the reminder to more closely consider visuals. Great point re: slippage pattern. I agree that the narrative could have been more tightly woven.
@Maggie – I agree about the multicutural characters and strong bond with grandmother. I’m glad you enjoyed it so much! In reviewing and grading the title, I was thinking about it in terms of romance, since the review is for RITA nominated titles, which are awarded for “excellence in published romance novels and novellas.” Alterations doesn’t fit the bill for me in that context, although I would recommend it to other readers who are looking for other type of reading experiences.