Book Review: Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid

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Never Always Sometimes
Author: Adi Alsaid
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary
Released: August 4, 2015
Review Source: Harlequin Teen

Never date your best friend

Always be original

Sometimes rules are meant to be broken

Best friends Dave and Julia were determined to never be cliché high school kids—the ones who sit at the same lunch table every day, dissecting the drama from homeroom and plotting their campaigns for prom king and queen. They even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they'd never, ever do in high school.

Some of the rules have been easy to follow, like #5, never die your hair a color of the rainbow, or #7, never hook up with a teacher. But Dave has a secret: he's broken rule #8, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school. It's either that or break rule #10, never date your best friend. Dave has loved Julia for as long as he can remember.

Julia is beautiful, wild and impetuous. So when she suggests they do every Never on the list, Dave is happy to play along. He even dyes his hair an unfortunate shade of green. It starts as a joke, but then a funny thing happens: Dave and Julia discover that by skipping the clichés, they've actually been missing out on high school. And maybe even on love.

Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid is a story about high school, love triangles, and stepping out of your comfort zone. Sounds like the perfect recipe for a Young Adult novel, am I right?

We have Julia and Dave who put together a list of cliche high school things they vowed to NEVER do. Until, Julia suggests the opposite. Breaking every rule on the list leads to self discovery and love.

I thoroughly enjoyed Never Always Sometimes. Mostly because Alsaid is such a brilliant author that I was quickly captivated by his writing and style. The overall story definitely reminded me why I loved YA. Love triangles galore! Another absolute favorite quirk about it is the banter between characters. Who doesn't love some cute banter? I live for it in my books! The only thing about this book that would make me down-rate it, was that I couldn't personally relate to the brilliant characters.

But, like I said, YA all the way! It's a great young adult read for anyone and everyone!

Blog Tour: Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid | Interview | Giveaway

Welcome to our stop on Never Always Sometimes tour for Adi Alsaid. This tour is hosted by The Fantastic Flying Book Club Tours.

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Never Always Sometimes
Author: Adi Alsaid 
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary
Released: August 4th 2015
Publisher: Harlequin Teen

  

Never date your best friend

Always be original

Sometimes rules are meant to be broken

Best friends Dave and Julia were determined to never be cliché high school kids—the ones who sit at the same lunch table every day, dissecting the drama from homeroom and plotting their campaigns for prom king and queen. They even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they'd never, ever do in high school.

Some of the rules have been easy to follow, like #5, never die your hair a color of the rainbow, or #7, never hook up with a teacher. But Dave has a secret: he's broken rule #8, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school. It's either that or break rule #10, never date your best friend. Dave has loved Julia for as long as he can remember.

Julia is beautiful, wild and impetuous. So when she suggests they do every Never on the list, Dave is happy to play along. He even dyes his hair an unfortunate shade of green. It starts as a joke, but then a funny thing happens: Dave and Julia discover that by skipping the clichés, they've actually been missing out on high school. And maybe even on love.

Interview

1.       Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Born and raised in Mexico City to Israeli parents, I’m a movie buff, a basketball coach, and one of those people that posts too many food pics on Instagram.

2.       What were your biggest challenges in writing Never Always Sometimes? I think that revisions focused mainly around making the characters feel as rounded out as possible, and that the choices they made feel true to their characters. There’s a POV shift halfway through the book, and Julia in her head was too at odds with how Julia had acted throughout, even if it was in Dave’s POV. The way I’d outlined her story before writing it was now at odds with the way she’d come alive on the page, and I had to go back and rework plot points and her voice. It took a few tries to really get it right, and I even had to throw out whole chapters and rewrite them entirely.

3.       Were any of the characters in the book inspired by people from your real life? Dave is very loosely based on a college friend of mine (I took his physique, his last name, and a couple of his mannerisms), and Mr. Marroney is a complete cartoon of a math teacher I had in high school.

4.       Do you talk to your characters while writing a story, to get into the mood? I don’t go that far, but I am constantly thinking about them, wondering what they would like/dislike, what they might say in a given situation. When I’m writing a story the characters are constantly in my mind, but I don’t quite take it to the point of having conversations with them.

5.       What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why? Maybe the slam poetry scene. Because of math sex puns. Yeah, there are math sex puns in this book.

6.       What is an unknown fact about Never Always Sometimes? Much like the places I wrote about in Let’s Get Lost, I’ve never spent much time in San Luis Obispo where the book is set. I’ve driven through a couple of times, and I lived a few hours north in Monterey for six months, so I know the general feel of the area, but many of the detailed locations are complete fabrications that you won’t find in SLO.

7.       Describe your book in 5 words? Dave and Julia dislike clichés.

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Adi Alsaid was born and raised in Mexico City, then studied at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While in class, he mostly read fiction and continuously failed to fill out crossword puzzles, so it's no surprise that after graduating, he did not go into business world but rather packed up his apartment into his car and escaped to the California coastline to become a writer. He's now back in his hometown, where he writes, coaches high school and elementary basketball, and has perfected the art of making every dish he eats or cooks as spicy as possible. In addition to Mexico, he's lived in Tel Aviv, Las Vegas, and Monterey, California. A tingly feeling in his feet tells him more places will eventually be added to the list. Let's Get Lost is his YA debut.

   

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Waiting on Wednesday: Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid

Waiting on Wednesday

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Never Always Sometimes

Author: Adi Alsaid

Release Date: August 4th 2015

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Dave and Julia are best friends. On the brink of high school, they made a list of cliches they would never do. Now in their senior year, Dave and Julia decide to try every Never on the list. As they break out of their comfort zone and have many adventures- both together and apart- they learn a lot more about who they are and what their true feelings are for one another.

Book Blitz: Let's Get Lost | Adi Alsaid | Excerpt | Giveaway

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Let's Get Lost

by Adi Alsaid

Release Date: 07/29/14

Harlequin Teen

Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost.

Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.

There's HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday—and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.

Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth— sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.

Available Now 
* * Indie Bound * Harlequin.com

Early Praise:

“Reminiscent of John Green’s Paper Towns and road trip novels that feature a teen paving the way to adulthood, Alsaid’s debut is a gem among contemporary YA novels.” – School Library Journal

“Five love stories, beautifully woven together by a special girl in search of adventure, hope, and full appreciation of life’s simple pleasures. A do-not-miss.  ” – Justine Magazine

“Moving and poignant.”  - Glitter Magazine

“An entertaining and romantic road-trip debut.” – Kirkus

"Leila's quest to find the Northern Lights takes readers on a captivating cross-country journey, where four strangers' adventures collide into one riveting tale of finding yourself." ―YABooksCentral.com

“This will likely be a popular summer hit, especially for older teen about to embark on their own journeys of self-discovery.” –Booklist

HUDSON COULD HEAR the car’s engine from blocks away. He stepped outside the garage and closed his eyes, listening, picking apart the sounds so that he would know exactly what he’d have to fix before he even popped the hood.

Standing there against the garage, listening to the still-far-off car, Hudson could forget about everything else. About school and girls and his future and whether his friends were actually jackasses or just acting like them. With his eyes closed, Hudson could reduce the world to a single engine and nothing more; a world where he could not only name every little part but knew what it was for, how it worked, how to fix it.

He opened his eyes when he heard the car’s brakes chirp as it slowed to turn into the garage. It was an old Plymouth Acclaim, the kind of car you either happily sent off to die or loved with your entire heart and refused to let go of. It had seen better days, its red paint job chipped and faded, its muffler not doing much muffling. He waved the driver forward to where he was standing. He was still identifying the car’s problems when the girl killed the engine and climbed out.

He only allowed himself a quick glance at her, knowing as soon as he saw her that she was the kind of girl who could make you think your life was not complete unless she was in it. She was a jumble of contradictions: short but with long legs, fierce green eyes but a kind expression, baby-faced but wise. She was wearing a snug, plain red T-shirt that matched her car. Her hair was down, the black locks reaching just past her chin.

“Afternoon,” she said, offering a polite smile.

He replied in kind, trying to adopt the professional tone he used with most customers. He asked her to pop the hood and then walked to the front of the car to release the latch. He meant to bury himself in work right away, but against instinct he stole another glance. How long would the memory of her face haunt him? Days? Weeks? “You having trouble with anything specific?”

“Well,  not really,”  she said, slipping her hands into the back pockets of her shorts, which made her posture change in a way Hudson couldn’t help but notice. The quiet world outside the garage noticed the change in her posture, the damp Mississippi air noticed, even the various grease stains spread out on the garage floor noticed. “I just got started on a road trip, and it’s making a lot of noise, so I wanted to be sure it’s in shape.”

Hudson grabbed a clean rag off a nearby shelf and checked the oil and the transmission fluid. He liked working in relative silence, nothing but the subtle sound of the cooling engine, his hands and tools on the machine. Something about this girl, though, made him chatty. “Where you goin’?”

“North,” she said. “All the way north.”

“You from around here?” He suddenly felt self-conscious about his drawl, the hitch in his vowels, the overall lackluster quality of his presence.

“Nope. You?”

He chuckled as he ran his hands around the engine, checking for cracks in belts. “Born and raised.”

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About the Author

Adi Alsaid was born and raised in Mexico City, then studied at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While in class, he mostly read fiction and continuously failed to fill out crossword puzzles, so it's no surprise that after graduating, he did not go into business world but rather packed up his apartment into his car and escaped to the California coastline to become a writer. He's now back in his hometown, where he writes, coaches high school and elementary basketball, and has perfected the art of making every dish he eats or cooks as spicy as possible. In addition to Mexico, he's lived in Tel Aviv, Las Vegas, and Monterey, California. A tingly feeling in his feet tells him more places will eventually be added to the list. Let's Get Lost is his YA debut.  
Let's Get Lost Website!

   

***GIVEAWAY***

1 signed hard cover copy of Let’s Get Lost

1 Let’s Get Lost luggage tag

1 Harlequin TEEN notebook

1 Let’s Get Lost sachel

1 Harlequin TEEN tote bag

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Blitz Organized by:

Book Blitz: Let's Get Lost | Adi Alsaid | Top 5 Authors | Givewaway

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Let's Get Lost

by Adi Alsaid

Release Date: 07/29/14

Harlequin Teen

Five strangers. Countless adventures. One epic way to get lost.

Four teens across the country have only one thing in common: a girl named LEILA. She crashes into their lives in her absurdly red car at the moment they need someone the most.

There's HUDSON, a small-town mechanic who is willing to throw away his dreams for true love. And BREE, a runaway who seizes every Tuesday—and a few stolen goods along the way. ELLIOT believes in happy endings…until his own life goes off-script. And SONIA worries that when she lost her boyfriend, she also lost the ability to love.

Hudson, Bree, Elliot and Sonia find a friend in Leila. And when Leila leaves them, their lives are forever changed. But it is during Leila's own 4,268-mile journey that she discovers the most important truth— sometimes, what you need most is right where you started. And maybe the only way to find what you're looking for is to get lost along the way.

Pre-Order Today!
* * Indie Bound * Harlequin.com

Early Praise:

“Reminiscent of John Green’s Paper Towns and road trip novels that feature a teen paving the way to adulthood, Alsaid’s debut is a gem among contemporary YA novels.” – School Library Journal

“Five love stories, beautifully woven together by a special girl in search of adventure, hope, and full appreciation of life’s simple pleasures. A do-not-miss.  ” – Justine Magazine

“Moving and poignant.”  - Glitter Magazine

“An entertaining and romantic road-trip debut.” – Kirkus

"Leila's quest to find the Northern Lights takes readers on a captivating cross-country journey, where four strangers' adventures collide into one riveting tale of finding yourself." ―YABooksCentral.com

“This will likely be a popular summer hit, especially for older teen about to embark on their own journeys of self-discovery.” –Booklist

Top 5 YA Authors

• John Green

• Leslye Walton

• David Levithan

• Corey Whaley

• E. Lockhart 

In the few years since I began reading young adult novels, I’ve taken a shotgun-blast approach when choosing what to read next. Rather than focusing on one author’s work to fully explore, I’ve tried to get my hands on as many different ones as possible. So, though I’ve only read one or two books by some of these authors, they wrote the books I most enjoyed within the genre, and am looking forward to reading more and more of their work. Three of them I only discovered this year while traveling to book conferences, and all three of their books (Whaley’s Noggin, Lockhart’s We Were Liars, and fellow debut author Leslye Walton’s The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender) are among my favorite books overall that I’ve read in the past couple years.

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About the Author

Adi Alsaid was born and raised in Mexico City, then studied at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While in class, he mostly read fiction and continuously failed to fill out crossword puzzles, so it's no surprise that after graduating, he did not go into business world but rather packed up his apartment into his car and escaped to the California coastline to become a writer. He's now back in his hometown, where he writes, coaches high school and elementary basketball, and has perfected the art of making every dish he eats or cooks as spicy as possible. In addition to Mexico, he's lived in Tel Aviv, Las Vegas, and Monterey, California. A tingly feeling in his feet tells him more places will eventually be added to the list. Let's Get Lost is his YA debut.  
Let's Get Lost Website!

   

***GIVEAWAY***

1 signed hard cover copy of Let’s Get Lost

1 Let’s Get Lost luggage tag

1 Harlequin TEEN notebook

1 Let’s Get Lost sachel

1 Harlequin TEEN tote bag

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Book Blitz Organized by: