Review: SIX MONTHS LATER by Natalie D. Richards (Sourcebooks Fire, 2013)

From Amazon: She Has Everything She Ever Wanted. But Not Her Memory...

When Chloe fell asleep in study hall, it was the middle of May. When she wakes up, snow is on the ground and she can't remember the last six months of her life.

Before, she'd been a mediocre student. Now, she's on track for valedictorian and being recruited by Ivy League schools. Before, she never had a chance with super jock Blake. Now he's her boyfriend. Before, she and Maggie were inseparable. Now her best friend won't speak to her.

What happened to her? Remembering the truth could be more dangerous than she knows...

Audience: YA
Genre: YA Thriller, Mystery, Romance
Length: 336 pgs

Rating: *** (I liked it)

Review: This may seem unfair, and maybe I talked about it in a recent review, but I can't remember. I rated down because of the language. In this case, I felt like it drew away from the story and from the character. Let me explain just a bit. I listened to a podcast once about using swearing in writing-it came from a grammar point of view, not a religious one or something like that. It talked about how the more frequent a word is used, the less impact it has. The narrator swore so much, that it lost all impact for what she wanted to get across. For example, when the two main characters finally kiss, the male MC says, "Damn it," and pulls her toward him. It should have been a huge build up of this really tense moment, but it was so lackluster because that word and others had been used so often, it didn't haven an impact anymore.

Beyond that, a good book. I liked the characters and how the main character rated the girls more for how nice they were than if they were popular or not, and how she admitted to liking popular girls a little, maybe not loving them, but not putting them into extreme categories like so many YAs do. The relationships with Blake and Adam are just how they should be I think. For the most part, the pacing was really well. For a chunk in the middle it felt like things stagnated but then it picked back up again so that I didn't want to quit reading from about three-fourths through on.

Content: 

Sex 2/5 (Long kissing scenes, being implied that perhaps she and Blake had sex in the months she forgot)

Language 5/5 (Frequent use of D, H, S, and God in vain; A few Bs; One F-bomb.)

Violence 2/5 (Fight scenes, people dying, mystery and thriller related violence that fit the book)

Overall rating - PG-16

Try this. Like YA Mystery Thrillers? Read BREAKING BEAUTIFUL or DEAD GIRLS DON'T LIE by Jennifer Shaw Wolf.