On the night of the big Spring Break party, Hadley “borrows” her boyfriend Ben’s car without telling him. As payback, he posts a naked picture of her online for the entire senior class to see.
Now Hadley has a choice: go back to the party and force Ben to delete the picture or raise the stakes and take his beloved car on a road trip as far away from their hometown of Oak Grove, Ohio as she can get.
Chapters alternate to reveal each possible future as Hadley, her ex-boyfriend, Josh, and her best friends embark on a night of reckless adventure where old feelings are rekindled, friendships are tested, and secrets are uncovered that are so much worse than a scandalous photo.
This one was a doozy. And not in a good way. But not in a bad way either. It could go either way. Kinda like this story line. I just finished reading this last night and I really can't make heads or tales of this book. I'm not even totally sure of my rating. I'm not sure of anything pertaining to A Million Times Goodnight.
Since I don't know where to start with my review at this point, I'm just going to dive right in. This book starts off as one story. Then the plot splits. It splits?!? Yes. It splits. All of the sudden, you're basically playing devil's advocate with the plot line. Every other chapter, you switch between two different scenarios - two different ways that the characters deal with the beginning situation. Let me tell you how it read ... it read like the author was conflicted as to which plot she wanted to use when she came up with this book idea. So she decided to use both and she basically zippered them together. On the left side of the zipper is the story line involving a road trip and the right side is the story line where the characters stay in town. Then she just zipped that shit up and went with two story lines. That is the best way for me to explain it. A zipper. That's actually a badass description if I do say so myself. Anyhow, that's my take on the zipper plot. I don't know for sure why the author decided to do it this way ... it's a bit ... involved, to be honest. I found it a tad difficult to keep up with which side of the zipper knew which information at which time. That's the thing ... the left side will find out an important piece of info to the story in let's say, chapter 24 but then the right side won't find out that same information until chapter 35. Maybe my confusion was related to my having to constantly pick up and put the book down because we have kiddos and I can't just sit and read all day. Whatever my confusion was related to (I'm thinking The Zipper), it was hard to follow.
You would think that because of the above issues that it would be hard to keep up with characters as well. But that part was easy. It was almost as if you were able to get to know the characters easier because you were able to see them in different situations going on at the same time and learn how they react to things. Hell, I don't know.
It was a good story. It was two good stories. I would have been totally okay with McBride picking just one plot. The story would have been good without The Zipper. I would have totally enjoyed it if it was ... (gasp) normal. Some of my first notes on the book were that the wheel didn't need reinventing. And that is what the story felt like at first. Don't change something that works so well but then we wouldn't have new technologies and stuff if someone wasn't always trying out new things. That being said ... I would still be okay if it was written in the traditional way.
And then that ending. W. T. F. What in the world was that ending?!? Ugh. Le sigh. Confusing. That's what the ending was. I guess I give this 4 stars. I liked it ... kinda. I really liked it? Yeah, let's go with that. I think.
This is available July 28th, 2015. You better check this one out just so you can see The Zipper.
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