Goodreads Synopsis:
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover, a passionate tale of friendship, betrayal, and romance.
At twenty-two years old, Sydney has a great life: She’s in college, working a steady job, in love with her wonderful boyfriend, Hunter, and rooming with her best friend, Tori. But everything changes when she discovers Hunter’s cheating on her–and she is left trying to decide what to do next.
Sydney becomes captivated by Ridge, her mysterious neighbor. She can’t take her eyes off him or stop listening to the passionate way he plays his guitar every evening out on his balcony. And there’s something about Sydney that Ridge can’t ignore, either. When their inevitable encounter happens, they soon find themselves needing each other in more ways than one…
Original music created for Maybe Someday by musician Griffin Peterson can be accessed through the website listed in the ebook and paperback.
My review:
I’ve been meaning to read a Colleen Hoover novel for some time, so when I visited my daughter recently and she offered to lend me Maybe Someday I didn’t deliberate and say Maybe, no sir, I jumped at the chance. Maybe Someday literally sent shivers up and down my spine. This is my first New Adult novel and I sense it will not be my last. If I could sum up the strengths of Maybe Someday I would say that Colleen has a way of writing that gets the reader immersed into the private thoughts and emotions of the characters. It’s almost as if I’ve been guiltily eavesdropping on a developing love affair. I found myself really seeing this dilemma from two differing points of view, which alternate giving you a male and a female perspective (the novel is written from both Sydney and Ridge’s viewpoints.) I was amused to see that Ridge got the last word, but his final sentence was worth it, so that’s ok!
Sydney finds out that her flatmate boyfriend, Hunter, (very cheater sounding,) is cheating with her best friend Tori, on her birthday of all days. Hunter fits the typical male cheater profile, he’s just out for sex rather than love. Poor Sydney, it’s not really the birthday surprise she was hoping for.
The hurt of this revelation leads her to staying in a flat with three people that she doesn’t know, Ridge, the musician, Warren, the funny prankster, who they like to take pranking tips from, and Bridgette, the bitch. Again, I like this, because it suggests Sydney’s hurt is so profound that in her current state of confusion she would go anywhere, even to a strangers flat, to escape the two people who had hurt her so much. Warren and Bridgette are both interesting characters but of the two I would say I preferred Warren. I think more emphasis was placed on Warren’s part in the novel rather than Bridgette’s and this is as it should be. There is also Brennan, Ridge’s younger brother, who is the voice for Ridge’s lyrics in their band Sounds of Cedar. Sydney hasn’t met Warren and Bridgette before, but she has seen Ridge out on his balcony playing his guitar, and has been drawn to his marvellous guitar playing, and of course to him! Ridge learns that Sydney has a wonderful gift for writing song lyrics, and their relationship develops from this shared interest.
There are so many ironies in this novel.
Ridge struggles with his conscience when he learns of Hunter’s infidelity with Tori, eventually he decides to tell her and texts Sydney about Hunter’s infidelity, but later he is tempted himself to be unfaithful with Sydney. Sydney is the victim of infidelity and then becomes a possible instigator of infidelity. So we see the whole problem from the viewpoint of both the hurt party, first Sydney, and then Maggie, and the “cheaters,” and the point to be made is both parties are hurting. This is where Colleen scores, please forgive the pun, she shows the emotions of the “innocent” and the “guilty” parties and this is such an interesting way to go. These kind of heightened emotions aren’t that simple to define, they don’t just flow in a straight controlled line, rather they zigzag all over the place causing a sense of deep hurt and chaos.
Will Sydney and Ridge become cheaters? If they do, how will they feel when they cross this forbidden line? Sydney and Ridge are basically caring people who don’t want to upset Ridge’s lovely girlfriend Maggie by falling in love. Yes, falling in love, this isn’t about a sexual attraction without love, no if it had been it would have de-valued the plot. But, and this is a big but, the emotion of love has no off switch, it isn’t something that we can turn off easily, once the fire of love is lit it is so hard to extinguish. So there are good intentions, and all in all they do well to keep their desires in check, particularly for a New Adult novel I guess, but a single kiss is enough to set their hearts aflame with longing. In my experience this is true, if you love someone a kiss will tell you all you need to know about that person and Colleen gets this so right, as this quote illustrates: “Kisses like his should come with a warning label. They can’t be good for the heart.”
A Disney tornado of a kiss! WOW!!!
Yes, Disney figured out the power behind the simple kiss! Even in the Lady and the Tramp, this is so obvious and cute!
Link:
Top 15 Disney Kisses/Kiss Scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOHmJalt2w
I loved that Colleen chose a male character that was different, Ridge is deaf, so this enables the reader to see him communicating his emotions in a way that a hearing person wouldn’t normally be able to. I think this is so interesting, particularly as guys tend to hold their emotions in check more than girls. Ridge can’t hear so he uses his other senses to experience life in full. To begin with Ridge and Sydney communicate with each other by texting, (a large proportion of the novel is in text speak,) but when texting and computer messaging isn’t enough to convey Ridge’s emotions he manages to utter a few precious words. When Ridge and Sydney practice songs together he has to lie close to her or lean against her chest to feel the reverberations of her voice. “His head is against my chest, and I can feel his hair brush my neck. He’s pretty much sprawled across me in order to reach his guitar with both arms.” It’s no wonder that a deep connection grows! It takes Ridge a long time to discover that his love for Sydney and Maggie is not the same love, one is born out of a sense of wanting to protect someone, (and Ridge is a caring type of guy,)whereas the other is a less complicated love, which is yet another irony. Finally, Ridge comes to a decision. It takes him a long time to get there and I just wanted to grab him by the scruff of the neck and shake him and say, come on Ridge, what are you waiting for, make a decision, stop procrastinating!
I enjoyed the reveal towards the end of the novel, that was an interesting way for the novel to go. Another point I would like to make about Maybe Someday is the action is contained within a very small area. So if you like books with rich descriptions of places to add depth to a story you probably will find this lacking. It’s almost as if the characters are in a bubble, a bubble of emotion, but maybe this is a conscious decision on Colleen Hoover’s part. Possibly she wants the reader to focus one hundred percent on the character’s feelings, and emotions, slightly to the detriment of a sense of place.
There have been criticisms of this book, some reviewers have been turned off by the cheater theme, but in my opinion books are here to make us question moral dilemmas, and the feelings and emotions of people caught up in such a scenario. I sympathise that this book would most probably be a difficult one to read if you’ve just suffered a break up, and we’ve all experienced these at some point in our lives, but let’s not pretend cheating doesn’t happen, it’s best to write about these painful issues, give them voice, and I think to her credit Colleen Hoover does this very well indeed. So read the whole novel, if you read the first half you might be quick to assume that Ridge is a typical guy doing his best to hide the fact that he has a girlfriend so he can get some action! In fact I would say that in Maybe Someday Colleen overthrows the typical stereotype of the cheater and argues that sometimes cheaters can be nice people, (who have some flaws,) caught up in a very difficult situation, which they would much rather never have found themselves in.
Overall rating is so close to five out of five, this one has been so hard to rate but I’d say: 4.5 stars.
Highly recommended for readers of New Adult, YA, Romance, Contemporary, and readers who like to deliberate about the complexities of relationships, this book is most definitely for you. Oh, and for lovers of music, I just found out today there is a soundtrack for Maybe Someday, how awesome is that!
I’ve been following Colleen on her author page for sometime, and now I am so glad that I am!
www.facebook.com/authorcolleenhoover
She’s also on Twitter and Instagram: @colleenhoover
Colleen hosts a book-a-day giveaway on her Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages.
My Favourite Quotes:
“How ever, I’ve learned that the heart can’t be told when and who and how it should love. The heart does whatever the hell it wants to do. The only thing we can control is whether we give our lives and our minds the chance to catch up to our hearts.”
“Hey, heart. Are you listening? You and I are officially at war.”
“I failed miserably at trying not to fall in love with you.
…
I failed first.”
“To me, lyrics are harder to write when you have to invent the feelings behind them. That’s when lyrics take a lot of thought, when they aren’t genuine.”
“Never in all my life and in all my years of living in a world of silence have I wanted to hear something as much as I want to hear her sing right now. I want to hear her so bad it physically hurts.”
“Hurts to see you everyday
Cupid shuts his eyes and shot me twice
Smell your perfume on my bed
Thoughts of you invade my head
Truths are written, never said
And if I can’t be yours now
I’ll wait here on this ground
Till you come, till you take me away
Maybe someday
Maybe someday”
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Have you read Maybe Someday? Do leave a comment below I’d love to hear from you.
Bye for now,
Marje @ Kyrosmagica xx
