A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall

The local bookshop where I work part-time often receives shipments of ARCs (advanced reader copies, i.e. books that have not yet been published that publishers want us to read, like, and recommend to our customers).  Unfortunately, it is a rare day when any of those books are romance novels, or even books with romantic undertones.  Last Saturday my manager opened a package and discovered, much to my excitement, three romantic novels by Sandy Hall.  Two of the novels were her previously published books, A Little Something Different and All Signs Point to Yes, and the third was her newest book, not yet published.  Knowing my obsession with romance, my manager thrust the books into my hands and told me to have fun.

The covers of the books are absolutely beautiful, a total flip from my usual covers with half-naked men and women on them.  I read the blurbs of bother book and decided to begin my reading with A Little Something Different.  The book follows the romantic entanglements of Azalea (Lea) and Gabe, two shy, awkward college students enrolled in the same creative writing course.  The overall story sounded like your typical young adult novel, but there was one striking difference.  Rather than being told from the viewpoints of the two main characters, Hall chose to tell the story of Lea and Gabe through fourteen other individuals.  These individuals include friends, family, baristas, professors, annoying classmates, a bus driver, a squirrel and a bench (yes, you read that right, a squirrel and a bench).

I was eager to begin this book, so I was disappointed to discover, at only page thirty-five, that I was ready to throw in the towel.  In that short number of pages I already had so many issues with the story that I was finding it increasingly difficult to continue. 

The first thing that really bothered me occurred on only page four when the author described the creative writing professor’s first-day-of-school outfit as “a slutty Little House on the Prairie” and later included the following sentence from the professor’s point-of-view, “I hop up on the desk, making sure my Laura Ingalls mini-skirt doesn’t ride perilously high”.  As someone who graduated from a university, and even took a creative writing course, I found that description of the professor completely unprofessional, for one, and also unrealistic.  It was one of many roll-my-eyes moments that this book drew from me. 

I, also, took quite an issue with the sheer number of viewpoints.  I was hesitant from the beginning about reading a story from fourteen different people, but my concern was validated as I read.  The author really did not take the time to create different personalities and writing styles for each character introduced.  At times I found myself having to backtrack to remember whose section I was supposed to be reading, also a symptom of simply having too many different characters to keep track of from the get-go.  Hall, also, tended to switch between viewpoints a little too quickly for my taste which only resulted in my not getting to know the characters as well as I would have liked.

By far my largest issue with book, however, was the viewpoints of the squirrel and the bench.  It seemed as though Hall was trying to add some sections of the book that were purely for comedic relief, but A Little Something Different was not suffering from a lack of funny moments.  In fact, the squirrel and bench viewpoints felt too forced and silly, when what I really wanted was for the book to feel a little more serious.

Despite my complaints with the book, I managed to finish it without feeling like it was too much a waste of my time.  There were certainly sections of the book where I felt connected to the characters and where I felt vested in their relationship, despite the overwhelmingly cliché nature of the book. I think I might have enjoyed the book much more had the book simply been from the viewpoints of Lea and Gabe, but I can see why the author might have tried to spice up what would have otherwise been your typical teen romance story.  I plan to read Sandy Hall’s other novels because I need to determine whether it is Hall’s writing style that I dislike or whether it was simply the fourteen different viewpoints that made this book a more difficult read for me. 

Pros: cute main characters, relatable love story, quick & simple read.

Cons: too many viewpoints, clichéd, and occasionally annoying, secondary characters, & the occasionally unrealistic plot.

2/5 Stars