Review: Don't Even Think About It

Don't Even Think About It
Author: Sarah Mlynowski

Publication Date: May 1st 2014    

 

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This is the story of how we became freaks. It's how a group of I's became a we.

When Class 10B got their flu shots, they expected some side effects. Maybe a sore arm. Maybe a headache. They definitely didn't expect to get telepathy. But suddenly they could hear what everyone was thinking. Their friends. Their teachers. Their parents. Now they all know that Tess has a crush on her best friend, Teddy. That Mackenzie cheated on Cooper. That Nurse Carmichael used to be a stripper. Some of them will thrive. Some of them will break. None of them will ever be the same.

A smart and funny story about friendship, first love and surviving high school from the bestselling author of Ten Things We Shouldn't Have Done.

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I would be the first person to complain about the way it was written. I have mixed feelings about first person and second person, and always comes down to each and every book whether I like it or not and if it works for me. The way Don't Even Think About It was completely new to me. It's kind of third person mixed with first, completing a collective "we". I thought I would hate it, but I didn't. I did get a confused a little in the beginning for the first few chapters until I got into it and then I got hooked and it just really flowed well.  I don't think it will work for everyone, but it worked for me.

We have a lot of main leads, and I mean a lot. Being the way it's written we also don't know who exactly is telling us the story, as I said it's a collective "we", it'll hurt your brain if you think too much about it. Obviously the parts where it's showing you different scenes play out certain characters, obviously it's not them telling that part of the scene, but one of the others (Or is it?) See? It's kind of brain numbing. It held this constant guessing game and mystery to it and It's also what kept me reading it. And it was so much fun to.

The best thing about Don't Even Think About It though is, I think, the chapters themselves. They're not too long and they're not too short, which worked really well with the book, and was better for it. It wasn't long enough to start annoying you with the mixed conversations and thoughts, but there was also a decent amount of storytelling. But, the inner dialogue and the things they over-hear range from boredom, anger, ridiculous to the outright hilarious. Some parts (mainly with Mackenzie and her parents) was cringe-worthy and scar-you-for-life kind of thing, but was completely hilarious.

My one main gripe about it though was the fact that there's not much plot. There's a lot of things going on with a lot of characters and streams on their inner dialogue and things they overhear there are a ton of distractions and it doesn't really go anywhere for a good chunk of the book. The other thing is believability, but at the end of the day, we're talking about a class getting telepathic powers from a batch of flu shot vaccinations here, and it's short and light, and quite addictive. I read it in 3 hours because I was just "one more chapter" and just couldn't put it down.

Don't Even Think About It is a good life learning lesson, I'm sure we've all thought about if we had a superpower, what would it be? Or you wish you could read a certain person's mind, and with this, it brought those things together, made it seem fun, but also showed the burden side of things with not liking what you hear, and not hearing what you want to hear, and how things and relationships change because of that.

 

~A review copy was provided by Orchard in exchange for an honest review.~

Rating: 3.5-4/5