Book Review: From What I Remember

I couldn’t remember the last young adult (YA) novel I read that tagged me along on an exhilarating and heart-racing adventure that made me laugh out loud (like, really), fall in love (to bits!!!), and … wait for it … hungry for tacos!

In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever read such a book, which makes “From What I Remember” by Stacy Kramer and Valerie Thomas the first.

I kind of got this book in an impulse. The spine, somehow, stood out from most of the books on the shelf (which I’ve seen a thousand times over), and its blurb was interesting enough, so I just grabbed it and purchased it.

I really didn’t have high expectations with this book. It’s a YA novel after all, and these days, YA novels impress me less and less. Little did I know, it would become one of my instant favourites.

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High school senior and aspiring scriptwriter Kylie Flores is graduating on top of her class and will be delivering the most important speech of her life, only to wake up on graduation day in an unfamiliar room in Mexico, with a bad hangover and the hottest guy in school, Max Langston, beside her. And as though matters couldn’t get any worse than that, Kylie finds out that they’re both wearing wedding bands.

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Next thing you know, you’re taken to a crazy ride of teenage angst, car chases, Mexican backyard parties, shots of tequila, bottles of beer, swigs of sangria, gay life, and whatnot in Max and Kylie’s mishap and 48-hour journey to self-discovery.

What I love most about this book is how fun yet insightful it is. Sure, it’s got teenagers as the protagonists of the story and there’s nerdy-girl-hot-guy-pairing (which is very cliché and spells out B-O-R-I-N-G for me more often than not), but there’s just something about From What I Remember that sets it apart from most  YA novels today.

It could be the authors’ well-thought-out plot and their perfectly-crafted characters. Or it could also be the clever addition of well-loved quotes from all-time favourite films (Kylie and her best friend Will are both movie geeks). The integration of the colourful Mexican culture may have amped up the story as well. OR, all of these elements just played together so well that the result is another lesser-known novel that needs more recognition than it’s getting.

For the first time in a long time, I hated myself for being such a fast-reader. I cracked From What I Remember open and finished it in no time. But then again, that’s a testament of how good a book it is.

I couldn’t stop turning its pages! I was craving for more and more, because the good parts (in this book, even the annoying parts could be considered “good parts”) just keep coming. Beyond the wide smile painted on my face when I closed the book, a part of me was sad, too. I don’t think I will come across another great story soon.

♥Andz