Review : Ditched : A Love Story by Robin Mellom

Summary (from Goodreads)

High school senior Justina Griffith was never the girl who dreamed of going to prom. Designer dresses and strappy heels? Not her thing. So she never expected her best friend, Ian Clark, to ask her.

Ian, who always passed her the baseball bat handle first.
Ian, who knew exactly when she needed red licorice.
Ian, who promised her the most amazing night at prom.
 

And then ditched her.

Now, as the sun rises over her small town, and with only the help of some opinionated ladies at the 7-Eleven, Justina must piece together — stain by stain on her thrift-store dress — exactly how she ended up dateless. A three-legged Chihuahua was involved. Along with a demolition derby-ready Cadillac. And there was that incident at the tattoo parlor. Plus the flying leap from Brian Sontag's moving car...But to get the whole story, Justina will have to face the boy who ditched her. And discover if losing out at prom can ultimately lead to true love.

Personal Thoughts

Looking at the cover and reading the summary of Ditched, I thought I would be reading a fun, light,hilarious and enjoyable book. Unfortunately, Ditched didn't manage to extract any emotion from me apart from frustration.

We are introduced to Justina who's lying in a ditch early in the morning after what was supposed to be the best night of her life. Her dress has all kinds of stains on it and she is a complete mess.
Justina then goes into a store. There, she starts to tell the story of her prom night to the store clerk.
All of this started out as being interesting. However, at some point I realized that I strongly disliked Justina's character. I honestly wanted to smack her in the head.
She had a despicable attitude. She was full of hate and jealousy.
Let me give you an example of her disgusting attitude. At one point in the book, she's going to enter the prom when she sees girls from her school. She downright points out that one of the girl is a "slut" because she was wearing a dress with a long slit.
I don't think it's okay to accuse someone of being slut just because of the way she dresses.
At another point, she says she wants to drag this girl Allison by her hair and push her into the pool because she was talking to Ian. They weren't doing anything. They were just freaking talking. I found her behavior bitchy and psychotic.
Moreover, she is the kind of girl who assumes things. She assumed that Ian would kiss her and she even planned out the location, the exact angle and well you get the vibe!

I found it terribly difficult to connect with her. I just couldn't.
To say that I didn't like her would be an understatement.

Ian was the only character I might have liked in this book. He was sweet, caring and  a very good listener. I loved how he bore all of Justina's antics. I love how he listened to Allison when she was complaining about her work load.
Overall, yes, Ian was my favorite character.

I didn't like the romance in this book. I didn't like how Justina assumed that Ian wanted to be her boyfriend. I didn't like how she planned their whole first kiss.
I didn't understand why Ian liked Justina although the opposite was understandable.
I didn't feel a lot of chemistry between the two main characters.

The plot is basically about Justina making an account of her disastrous evening through flashbacks.
The idea of flashbacks reminded me a lot of the Hangover movie!
The problems that Justina faced were at times excessive. I mean, can all this happen in one single night ?
Robin Mellom's writing is fairly good. It's easy to read and everything flows smoothly. I would say it was enjoyable.

Overall, I didn't like this book. I think this reviews depicts a lot of negative ideas on my part, but it's how I felt upon reading this book. I was disappointed because I thought I would like this book, but in the end the book was a giant failure for me all because of Justina.

Rating

Cover : 2/5
Plot : 2/5
Characters : 1/5
Writing : 3/5