Just Like You Said it Would Be
C.K. Kelly Martin
Publication date: February 15th 2017
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult

Did you ever want something so much that it felt like a kind of sickness, one you didn’t want to be cured of? On New Year’s Eve the feeling compels seventeen-year-old Amira to text the Irish ex-boyfriend she’s been missing desperately since they broke up at the end of summer, when she returned to Canada.

They agreed they wouldn’t be friends, that it would never be enough. But that was then— back when Amira’s separated parents had shipped her off to relatives in Dublin for the summer so they could test-drive the idea of getting back together on a long haul cruise. Back when Amira was torn away from a friend in need in Toronto only to fall in love with a Dublin screenwriting class and take a step closer to her dream career. And only to fall for cousin Zoey’s bandmate, Darragh, the guy who is first her friend, then her enemy and later something much more complicated—the guy she can say anything to, the guy who makes every inch of her feel wide awake in a way she hadn’t known was possible. The guy she might never see again. Or is there, despite the distance, somehow still a chance for them?

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SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEW

Recently someone questioned why I read young adult novels.  They had never read one (although they probably have but in course curriculum the novels are never referred to as young adult) and probably felt the way that I did for far too long. That is: young adult novels are angsty and superficial and are written for young attitudes/minds, you can throw in juvenile and immature too, if you like.

After reading a spate of rather superficial romances that has me putting a moritorium on requesting any romances to review for the foreseeable future (we’ll see if I stick with it), I picked up the young adult novel, Just Like You Said It Would Be by C.K. Kelly Martin. You can’t see me (I hope), but right now I am holding up my e-reader and declaring: This is why I read young adult novels! Just Like You Said It Would Be has all of the swoon and sweetness of a romance novel, but it adds in the dilemmas of being young and deciding on your future and having to work within a framework of someone else’s choosing. Also, the “sex scenes” (which put this in the upper age range of young adult) are not just about sex. The emotions between the characters are palpable and the “sex” means something, which I have to admit has not been obvious in the other books I’ve read lately where it is a rote act and makes you want to skip pages. I didn’t skip these pages. Everything was an amazing discovery.

Just Like You Said It Would Be is extremely well-written and, in addition to the romance between Amira and Darragh, there are several backstories that add significant depth.

What made Just Like You Said It Would Be really work for me was that it felt real. Amira felt like a real teenager with conflicting emotions and, although it was told in first person so we really couldn’t know Darragh as well, I felt that he was true as well. There weren’t any stereotypes and no cliched drama.

And I need to mention that Darragh is part of a band and Amira is a wannabe screenplay writer, so you know I was loving that!

I definitely recommend this for all of you who love young adult romance. Also, if you’re thinking about giving a YA novel a try, you might start with this one. It’s very obvious that for the author, Just Like You Said It Would Be was a labor of love and I think that love comes shining through every page.

I was provided with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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rating:  (4 butterflies and a ladybug out of 5 butterflies)

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Follow The Tour

C.K. Kelly Martin, Author Bio:

Long before I was an author I was a fan of books about Winnie the Pooh, Babar, Madeline, Anne Shirley and anything by Judy Blume. Throughout high school my favourite class was English. No surprise, then, that most of my time spent at York University in Toronto was as an English major–not the traditional way to graduate with a B.A. in Film Studies but a fine way to get a general arts education.

After getting my film studies degree I headed for Dublin, Ireland and spent the majority of the nineties there in forgettable jobs meeting unforgettable people and enjoying the buzz. I always thoughts I’d get around to writing in earnest eventually and I began writing my first novel in a flat in Dublin and finished it in a Toronto suburb. By then I’d discovered that writing about young characters felt the freshest and most exciting to me. You have most of your life to be an adult but you only grow up once.

Currently residing near Toronto with my Dub husband, I became an Irish citizen in 2001 and continue to visit Dublin as often as I can. My first young adult book, I Know It’s Over, came out with Random House in September 2008 and was followed by One Lonely Degree, The Lighter Side of Life and Death, My Beating Teenage Heart and Yesterday. I released Yesterday’s sequel, Tomorrow, in 2013 and put out my first adult novel, Come See About Me, as an ebook in June 2012. My most recent YA book, The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing, was published by Cormorant Books’ Dancing Cat Books imprint in 2014 and I’m pleased to announce they’ll be releasing my upcoming contemporary young adult novel, Delicate, on September 16th. Watch my website for more details!

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