Review: Never Never (Never Never, #1) by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher

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Never Never by Colleen Hoover

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Received: Bought
Publication Date: January 7th 2015
Publisher: Indie
Point of View: 1st Person & Alternative
Genres & Themes: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, High School, Secrets, Drama

BLURB:

Best friends since they could walk. In love since the age of fourteen.
Complete strangers since this morning.
He’ll do anything to remember. She’ll do anything to forget.

REVIEW:

description
Surprise, surprise, this is my first time giving a Colleen Hoover book one star as a rating. Actually, I have never never (HA!) rated one of her works less than three stars. Her novels are usually enjoyable, but I very much disliked this one…and am not going to feel sorry about it. There are some books on Goodreads that you can feel uncomfortable writing a negative review for because of how many of your friends loved it or people in general, but I’m not going to let this one be one of them. Never Never, you sucked missed the mark. So badly.

First off, this is not New Adult; it’s Young Adult. The characters are in a freaking high school! And there is freaking high school boy drama! Secondly, this is not a story; it’s a BIG and FRUSTRATING teaser. If we had an entire novel, what I just read would have been the first two chapters of it. (Because I’m taking out the useless ones only meaning to confuse us more.) In fact, it is as if the authors told themselves ‘‘The more we confuse our readers and add unexplained information, the MORE they’re going to freak and LOVE IT!’’ Nuh-uh. Yes for the former: I am indeed freaking out at how much I disliked this but never in a million years would I come to love this short story (ugh, it even hurts to call it that.)

Alright, so you’re probably wondering about the characters now. Are they nice? Beautiful? Well-developped?
‘‘I think my mother may be a bitch.’’ Yeah, that was Charlie, the main character, you just heard. She thinks her mom is a bitch because this latter wants to protect her against Silas whom took her husband away from her – I assume – and hurt Charlie. But are we given real detail on that? Well of course not, that would have been giving the readers too soon what they want. Why not let them linger a little while longer…until May 2015 perhaps? I hope this is at least a duology. Let’s not even start on Silas. The author pictured him as a guy hopelessly in love with Charlie (even before really knowing her) with so much intensity that I wasn’t convinced anymore. It was TOO MUCH. And TOO SOON.

There is cheating.
There are plenty of unanswered questions.
There is a cliffhanger.

There is an insta-love vibe and a high paranormal one too. It’s a very unrealistic contemporary story with a hard to imagine and unbelievable romance and a deal of under-developed secondary characters. And the writing wasn’t even that good! Simplistic and sometimes in contradiction with the personality of the characters. Often in the book, Silas says how he doesn’t like what Charlie does with a voice that implies more ‘‘I dislike this chick.’’ than ‘‘I’m deeply in love with this beautiful girl.’’

Also, this:

I’m standing on the edge of the lawn, looking down his street when he walks up behind me. I don’t hear him approach, but I smell him. I don’t know how, since he smells like the outdoors.

This is ridiculous. Are you sure you didn’t sense him, instead? *shakes head*

I did not like this and would not even recommend it to my worst enemy. I know many of you liked it though and I respect that. I’m debating whether reading the sequel or not, because who would be okay with having so many unanswered questions on their minds? But I will not prioritize it even a tiny little bit.

48 thoughts on “Review: Never Never (Never Never, #1) by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher”

  1. Oh no. I am so sad to see this review because I love BOTH of these authors and have been so excited about reading them. I wonder if this is one of those cases where if you want to read this, you should really wait until all the books are out? Maybe it would be less frustrating that way.
    Sorry you didn’t like this more.

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  2. Hmmmph. Kinda hard for a guy to smell like the outdoors when you are, in fact, outdoors. Are you sure it’s not the grass you smell? Gah. I think I’ll wait for the second one to come out before I decide on this one. I’m so glad I didn’t give in and bought it right away.

    Thanks for the review, Lola!

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  3. Dang. It was excited to read this book but that little quote sounds ridiculous :p. Like come on, you’re outside. 0_0 well good review 🙂 I like that dog picture :)!

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  4. I don’t know what I’m more scared of, the insta-love, the supernatural/paranormalness or the main character’s attitude… I almost bought this for the cover, but now the hands in the cover are even bothering me. I’m sorry you disliked this so much. Hmm, I may check this one out after the other book(s).

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  5. I’m so scared to read this now! I usually adore Colleen Hoover’s stories but I’ve already seen many 3-2 star ratings on Goodreads. And isn’t this book really short? I don’t like that it’s split up into two books. It’s like everything has to be a series now.

    I’ll give it a try, but with very low expectations.

    Great review! 🙂

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  6. Oh God, this sounds terrible! This is why I blog, so people like you can suffer, but I can stay safe 😛 I hate books that try to be “mysterious”. Just tell me what happens! I know if I read this I’d have to read the sequel, so I’ll stay away

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  7. it’s always hard going against the crowd. I did a two star review yesterday where the GR ones were all fours and fives, but if we’re not honest about how we enjoyed – or not – a book then reviews are pointless. Its does sound far more YA than NA and I hate cliffhangers too so this will be one I avoid. Thanks for your views, they really help.

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  9. EVERYONE IS READING AND HATING THIS BOOK. WHY IS EVERYONE READING IT THEM? #universal_conundrum 😀 tbh right now i can only smell the last meal i ate(like 5 min ago) on me bc it’s too cold to wash hands or drink waters so no thank you. (please ignore me)

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  10. So they basically split a novel in half to make people wait for the second part? Because that sounds like a good idea :/ it seems like this might be just a promotion thing for both authors. I’m sorry it sucked 😦

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  11. *runs away from this book as fast as possible* Jeez, that was harsh but I’m glad you were honest. If you hate a book, you hate it. There’s no point in trying to say nice things were there are none to say. Good review though, it was respectful and sometimes do a negative review being respectful can be hard so kudos to you!

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  14. I haven’t tried a Hoover book yet but I keep hearing about her. I’m sorry thought that this one isn’t that good and that you were disappointed and I hope the next one you read by her will be better.

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  15. I have yet to read any of Colleen Hoover’s work, but her books seem to pass the revue quite often. There seems to be a bit of a hype around her these days, and I’m anxious to try it out. I do have a couple of her novels on my Kindle, so it’ll be sooner rather than later. Never Never is getting some really mixed reviews, a friend of mine labled it as “frustrating and addictive”. I’m sorry you didn’t like it, and I hope your next read is much more enjoyable!

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  16. Every author usually has one bad egg in their portfolio, and it sucks that this one turned out to me it. The puppy JPEG that you shared helped to lessen the blow though with its cuteness. Was that your plan? That last quote you shared is pretty silly unless the character is a werewolf there’s no way they should SMELL another’s approach. LOL!

    Carmel @ Rabid Reads

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  18. Hiya there review twins 😉 I have already told you that I felt the same about this one. I just cannot get over this book and it really wasn’t something I needed in my life. Too bad as I respect both authors. Anyhow it’s all life.
    PS. I love your new design 😉

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  19. Hoover never does it for me, unfortunately. I was kind of interested in this one, just because of the slightly paranormal aspects. BUT I didn’t realise that it was so short. And now you’ve had a rather and experience with it as well. I’m definitely keeping that in mind. Thank you for the honest review, lovely! ❤

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  20. Too bad Never Never didn’t work for you at all, Lola! I actually loved it for all the reasons you hated it 🙂 The mystery, the lack of real information, the amnesia (and usually, I hate stories where one or more characters suffer from amnesia) and the fact that they literally had to ‘find themselves’ during their late teens.
    I hope you’re next read was much, much better.
    Have a great weekend.

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  21. Awwwww. Well now I know not to pick up THIS Colleen Hoover book! but I do want to try one of her books at least. I’m not a fan of cheating and unanswered questions and CLIFFHANGERS….yeah nope. I love that husky photo so cute and funny hahaha 🙂 I hope your next read is better Lola!

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  22. Whoa, whoa! It isn’t NEW ADULT?!! I thought it was going to be NEW ADULT!! I’m actually kind of disturbed by this actually, I mean . . . Colleen does NA so well, I just don’t want her to do YA. lmao. First of all, I didn’t know it was going to be such a short novel, which doesn’t particularly bother me, but sheesh, no wonder people were talking about a part 2. Also, paranormal aspects?!! I don’t know if I want that lol. I’ll be picking this up next month though, so I’m excited to see how it goes.

    I’m a little upset that it’s YA though. This discovery is truly bothering me right now lmao.

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  23. *scratches head* I totally thought this was NA. Does Colleen Hoover even dabble in YA? I’ll wait until the next installment comes out before I even attempt to read this one.

    Thanks for biting the bullet for us readers Lola!

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  24. Almost everyone on my instagram read this book. The blurb made me curious so it’s sad that they whole book is just more teaser. I also don’t like high school drama. (As much as I like young adult) Instant love and no answers, wow that stinks.

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  25. I actually really liked Never Never even though I can see what you’re saying. It was definitely not what it was said to be but I went into this book blind so I guess that kind of helped me but it was a find read in my opinion. I hope you read the next book because even if it wasn’t the best thing the ending was in my option really interesting!

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  26. I have never read a book by Colleen Hoover, but at least I know where not to start xD I have seen far too many negative reviews flying around from bloggers I love for me to want to try this one out. Thanks for letting me know what I should miss out on. And it was good that you gave reasons why as well.

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  27. U-oh… sounds like a big No-No for CoHo here. Maybe the title just speak for itself. Never Never as in Never Never satisfying enough. Hi Lola! Been a while since my last visit. I was actually surprised to see a 1 star for CoHo here but then you have justified it fairly. I have a few CoHo ebooks but I don’t have Never Never so I guess that’s good news for me. 🙂

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