Review: What to Say Next

Title: What to Say Next 
Series: None 
Author: Julie Buxbaum 
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult 
Publisher:Delacorte Press 
Publication Date: July 11, 2017 
Source: Bought 

From the New York Times bestselling author of Tell Me Three Things comes a charming and poignant story about two struggling teenagers who find an unexpected connection just when they need it most. For fans of Sophie Kinsella, Jennifer Niven, and Rainbow Rowell.
Sometimes a new perspective is all that is needed to make sense of the world.
KIT: I don’t know why I decide not to sit with Annie and Violet at lunch. It feels like no one here gets what I’m going through. How could they? I don’t even understand.
DAVID: In the 622 days I’ve attended Mapleview High, Kit Lowell is the first person to sit at my lunch table. I mean, I’ve never once sat with someone until now. “So your dad is dead,” I say to Kit, because this is a fact I’ve recently learned about her.
When an unlikely friendship is sparked between relatively popular Kit Lowell and socially isolated David Drucker, everyone is surprised, most of all Kit and David. Kit appreciates David’s blunt honesty—in fact, she finds it bizarrely refreshing. David welcomes Kit’s attention and her inquisitive nature. When she asks for his help figuring out the how and why of her dad’s tragic car accident, David is all in. But neither of them can predict what they’ll find. Can their friendship survive the truth?

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Julie Buxbaum has pretty much made herself a spot on my list of insta-buy authors after this one. I enjoyed her first novel, Tell Me Three Things, but this one was so heart wrenching and emotional I was completely caught up in these characters and their stories.  Not only was it full of diversity, it was also showed life as a high schooler so well.  There were certain parts that made me flashback to my own high school years, which wasn't always fun but definitely shows the talent of the author.  

Kit and David were the best parts of this novel.  Kit is a popular girl who recently lost her did in an accident.  David is the outcast who has been bullied throughout his school years.  When they came together, it was so nice to read about.  I loved their acceptance of each other and their blunt honesty; it was so refreshing and heart warming to see the start of this budding friendship.  The story is told from their alternating point of views and it was really nice to get into the heads of both characters.  I admired how well the author wrote both of their individual voices -- they were definitely distinct.  It did take me some time to get into the story due to some large and long paragraphs and descriptions without breaks, but after I got through the first fifty or so pages, it was so easy to just melt into the story.  

It was really painful to see the way the kids at the high school treated David -- they were absolutely cruel.  It infuriated me seeing the way he was treated, and infuriated me even more when I thought about how realistic the depiction was.  High schoolers are terrible, you guys.  It also made me kind of sad how everyone (mainly his sister) was trying to change David.  I understood it -- trust me,  I did -- it was just so sad that David was made to change himself when there was nothing wrong with him.  I did love seeing how Kit stood up for him, though.  She really was a true friend, one that David so desperately deserved.  

I'm so in love with this story and with this author's work.  I really am looking forward to reading what she comes out with next.  If you haven't read her books before, I'd highly recommend starting with this one.  It has amazing representation, a solid friendship turned slow-burning romance, and a surprising twist at the end that I actually didn't see coming.  

“What if we all jumped out of our boxes and chewed up our stupid labels? Who would we discover?” 

Five out of Five Teapots