A while ago I read This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales and quite liked it. I wanted to give some of her other books a try, so I picked up Tonight The Streets Are Ours from my local library. Unfortunately I was somewhat letdown by this book, and wanted to share my reasoning as to why it missed the mark.
To give a quick synopsis, Tonight The Streets Are Ours is about a girl called Arden who considers herself "recklessly loyal." She has always made sacrifices for others, often to the point of undermining herself. One day she stumbles upon an online blog called Tonight The Streets Are Ours, written by a teenage boy living in New York City called Peter. Through his blog, Peter expresses many emotions that resonate closely with Arden. She realizes that she has to meet him, and so embarks on a crazy road trip to the city on a quest to find him.
My main issue with this book is that it has absolutely no idea what it wants to be. There's a confusing smorgasbord of parental woes, friendship strains, and romance that frankly made my head hurt at times. Each individual aspect of this book has potential, but when all of the pieces are mashed together into an attempt at a cohesive story, things fall apart. To make things worse, the already convoluted plot is carried by characters that I found to be rather unlikable. The main character of Arden was annoyingly spineless, and things only got worse when Peter was introduced into the story. I found him to be obsessively egotistical and because of this I really couldn't connect with his character at all.
My one high praise for Tonight The Streets Are Ours is that it carries two very true messages: that there is always more than one side to every story, and that the best way to help others is to help yourself first. The author did a great job of delivering both of these concepts in this book, but unfortunately their potential influence on readers was muddled by the rest of the plot.
To rap up this review, I will simply say that Tonight The Streets Are Ours just has too many elements going on at once. This is its Achilles heel; what potential this book did have is almost entirely lost in the absurdity of the plot. Tonight The Streets Are Ours is readable, but is certainly not memorable. However, this should not be reason to avoid all of Leila Sales' books, as I can attest that some of her other projects such as This Song Will Save Your Life are wonderfully executed. Perhaps just think about bypassing Tonight The Streets Are Ours though, and invest your time in a more worthwhile read.
Author: Leila Sales
Genre: Drama/Romance/Teen Fiction
To give a quick synopsis, Tonight The Streets Are Ours is about a girl called Arden who considers herself "recklessly loyal." She has always made sacrifices for others, often to the point of undermining herself. One day she stumbles upon an online blog called Tonight The Streets Are Ours, written by a teenage boy living in New York City called Peter. Through his blog, Peter expresses many emotions that resonate closely with Arden. She realizes that she has to meet him, and so embarks on a crazy road trip to the city on a quest to find him.
My main issue with this book is that it has absolutely no idea what it wants to be. There's a confusing smorgasbord of parental woes, friendship strains, and romance that frankly made my head hurt at times. Each individual aspect of this book has potential, but when all of the pieces are mashed together into an attempt at a cohesive story, things fall apart. To make things worse, the already convoluted plot is carried by characters that I found to be rather unlikable. The main character of Arden was annoyingly spineless, and things only got worse when Peter was introduced into the story. I found him to be obsessively egotistical and because of this I really couldn't connect with his character at all.
My one high praise for Tonight The Streets Are Ours is that it carries two very true messages: that there is always more than one side to every story, and that the best way to help others is to help yourself first. The author did a great job of delivering both of these concepts in this book, but unfortunately their potential influence on readers was muddled by the rest of the plot.
To rap up this review, I will simply say that Tonight The Streets Are Ours just has too many elements going on at once. This is its Achilles heel; what potential this book did have is almost entirely lost in the absurdity of the plot. Tonight The Streets Are Ours is readable, but is certainly not memorable. However, this should not be reason to avoid all of Leila Sales' books, as I can attest that some of her other projects such as This Song Will Save Your Life are wonderfully executed. Perhaps just think about bypassing Tonight The Streets Are Ours though, and invest your time in a more worthwhile read.
Author: Leila Sales
Genre: Drama/Romance/Teen Fiction
Pages: 342
Year Published: 2015
My Rating: ★★☆☆☆
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