Meant to Be [Hardcover]

Lauren Morrill (Author)

Book Description

Release date: November 13, 2012

Meant to be or not meant to be . . . that is the question. 

It's one thing to fall head over heels into a puddle of hazelnut coffee, and quite another to fall for the—gasp—wrong guy. Straight-A junior Julia may be accident prone, but she's queen of following rules and being prepared. That's why she keeps a pencil sharpener in her purse and a pocket Shakespeare in her, well, pocket. And that's also why she's chosen Mark Bixford, her childhood crush, as her MTB ("meant to be").

But this spring break, Julia's rules are about to get defenestrated (SAT word: to be thrown from a window) when she's partnered with her personal nemesis, class-clown Jason, on a school trip to London. After one wild party, Julia starts receiving romantic texts . . . from an unknown number! Jason promises to help discover the identity of her mysterious new suitor if she agrees to break a few rules along the way. And thus begins a wild goose chase through London, leading Julia closer and closer to the biggest surprise of all: true love.

Because sometimes the things you least expect are the most meant to be.

"If you're into swoony romances with a little bit of history thrown in, you'll love Meant to Be."--HelloGiggles.com

"Fun, fresh and irresistibly romantic. STB (SURE to be) loved!"--Sarah Mlynowski

"Readers of Jennifer E. Smith and Stephanie Perkins will revel in this debate about love ruled by the stars or as a matter of the heart."--Shelf Awareness

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up-This delightful debut explores the excitement and insecurities of an unexpected first love. During the junior-year lit class trip to London, Julia, a rule-following, socially awkward swimmer/scholar, finds herself partnered with Jason, the obnoxious class clown. Her mission is to enjoy the historical sights while retracing her parents' honeymoon travels. He has plans to make the "Book Licker" break some rules and have fun. He drags her to a party, and after Julia has a few drinks, she exchanges numbers with a handsome British boy. Here is where the adventure begins. With a huge nod to Shakespeare, Jason agrees to help Julia compose love note texts and she agrees to write his cultural papers. The two form an alliance, and, although readers can see their feelings for each other grow, Julia believes her true "meant to be" love is her crush Mark, who happens to show up unexpectedly. Jealousy, some mixed messages, and a kiss that sends Julia spinning ensue. Even with the slightly contrived plotline, readers can't help but cheer for Jason as he opens up and wins Julia's heart. The good times they experience in London are a perfect balance to the painful secrets they reveal to each other, and girls will identify with Julia's angst when she believes she has been duped ("If I can go back to ignoring him, just like before this trip began, then I can forget"). A great choice for teens who enjoyed Jennifer E. Smith's The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight (Little, Brown, 2012), Gabrielle Zevin's Elsewhere (Farrar, 2005), or Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (Knopf, 2010).-Pamela Schembri, Newburgh Enlarged City Schools, NYα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Review

HelloGiggles.com, November 24, 2012:
"If you’re into swoony romances with a little bit of history thrown in, you’ll love Meant to Be. I love this book because it’s funny, it has a super-relatable heroine, and it features a ton of romantic tension...Lauren Morrill rules and this book is awesome."

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2012:
"The author has a good ear for comic dialogue."

Publishers Weekly, October 22, 2012:
"Morrill’s debut is entertaining and quick-witted."

Booklist, November 1, 2012:
"The traveling details are part of the fun: her friends are into shopping, not Shakespeare, and there are raucous puns about Big Ben. The contemporary scene with consumer name-dropping will grab readers...The core drama is the romance, with all its turnarounds and timeless realism."

School Library Journal, January 2013:
"This delightful debut explores the excitement and insecurities of an unexpected first love...A great choice for teens who enjoyed Jennifer E. Smith’s The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, Gabrielle Zevin’s Elsewhere, or Rachel Cohn and David Levithan’s Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (November 13, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385741774
• ISBN-13: 978-0385741774
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #77,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LAUREN MORRILL grew up in Maryville, Tennessee, where she was a short-term Girl Scout, a (not so) proud member of the marching band, and a trouble-making editor for the school newspaper. She graduated from Indiana University with a major in history and a minor in rock & roll, and now lives in Macon, GA with her husband and their dog, Lucy. When she's not writing, she spends a lot of hours getting knocked around playing roller derby. Meant to Be is her first novel.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the sweetest things I've read in a while November 13, 2012

By Gretchen @ My Life is a Notebook

Format:Hardcover

Thank you to Random House/Delacorte Press and NetGalley for this eARC!

Sometimes I read YA contemporary romance and I wonder if maybe I'll a little too jaded for my own good. I mean, is there nothing left in this realm that I can stand?

Turns out, there is. And it's this book.

I'll admit I had my reservations going into it. I mean, the premise is nothing new. The main character, Julia, has the nickname of "Book Licker" for good reason. She's a straight up nerd with a kooky best friend, a secret crush on a childhood friend and then she gets stuck with a guy she abhors for nine days in London. Quite frankly, I've seen this a million times with the variables tweaked.

But there's a saying, and that's that everything that is being written has always been written, and it's how you write it that makes a difference. If you've followed any of my reviews on romance in any kind of book, you'll know I'm very hard to please. That gives more weight to be saying that I fell head over heels for this book.

It wasn't perfect, and I'll get to that in a minute, but the point is that I found it amazingly cute. Julia's devotion to her parents and the concept of finding the one "meant to be" was absolutely touching. I was reading and giggling all the way through. Julia and Jason are the standard rom-com couple that can't stand each other, but the way they handle it and the things they say are just far too cute. They actually do end up getting rather nasty with each other too, which makes it more real--it's not just surface tension. I don't want to give away anything about the rest of the plot, but the twists thrown that complicate everything were actually interesting for the most part.

I do think that things fell apart a little bit on the characterization side. For one, there was an attempt to include way more characters then the story had real room for, and then to try to make those characters more than flat. I appreciate the attempt, but frankly it wasn't relevant, it got in the way and it bogged down the story. I really wish more of an attempt had been made to flesh out Jason's character as well. Throughout the story, he switches back and forth between sweet and immature way too easily. I understand that that's what Julia was seeing and everything, but honestly I never believed that there was another level to Jason beyond what we were seeing because it was never addressed in great detail. There is also the character of Mark, who I can't address without giving things away, but the way he was handled really annoyed me.

I think the greatest connection I made in this book was with Julia. She made the book for me. Sure, the nerd who's a secret romantic isn't a fresh story line by any means, but she managed to wrap her hands around my heart even so. She was funny, she was awkward, and--most importantly--she was real. Her reactions to all situations were genuine.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious, Touching and Clever November 13, 2012

By Christina (A Reader of Fictions) TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

OMG, you guys, pardon me while I flail freaking everywhere over how incredibly hilarious and wonderful and perfect for me this book is! Ahhhhh! There are certain authors who are just like made of magic for me, you know? Their every written word speaks to me. They're funny and clever, and say express the things that I think and feel all of the time, and, were I the kind of person to mark up my books, their books would be a mess of notes. Well, Lauren Morrill has just joined that esteemed crew with her debut novel Meant to Be.

I could tell straight off that this novel would be a fantabulous read for me. The book opens with, "There are certain things in life that just suck. Pouring a big bowl of Lucky Charms before realizing the milk is expired, the word 'moist,' falling face-first into the salad bar in front of the entire lacrosse team . . ." It you can make me laugh with the first two sentences, things are looking up. I proceeded to highlight a bunch of quotes that spoke to me and made me laugh. If you go on GR, right now and look up quotes by Lauren Morrill, I added all of them, because I'm a nutter and obsessed.

My very favorite aspect of Meant to Be is how well-drawn Julia is. She totally rocks, but which I mean she's kind of awkward and judgmental and anal-retentive. Julia might have more in common with me than any heroine I've ever encountered, with our main differences being her skill as a swimmer and her dedication to homework. Julia, like me, is not a rule-breaker, pretty much as a rule, and, when she does break them, it's this sort of painful mix of fun and fear. She loves reading more than just about anything else and has only one close friend, Phoebe. On top of that, she's introverted and has curly, frizzy hair she cannot figure out what to do with. My advice to her on that last one is confidence; if you pretend it looks awesome, a lot of people will be fooled.

What was most familiar to me about Julia was her perspective. Julia's mental dialog is pretty much exactly what it's like to live in my head, especially my less self-aware high school brain. Despite being incredibly intelligent and witty, Julia, when in a social situation, generally fails to prove herself verbose and lacks witty retorts. Yet, in her head, she has this constant judgmental, snarky commentary running at all times, which, of course, deserts her at times of need. She also has a temper and doesn't realize how harsh or superior she comes off to other people. To me, Julia is one hundred percent realistic, believable and hilarious.

I will say that the only other strongly-developed character is Jason, and even he takes a definite back seat. This is no surprise given how caught up Julia is in her own world and impressions of things and people. Since it's just like my mind, I can tell you right now that she's not the most reliable narrator. Meant to Be is definitely driven by Julia, so I suspect that if you don't like her the book won't be much fun for you.

The romance does not go anywhere surprising, but it's totally one of my favorite formulas. I've always been so weak to the boy and girl who don't like each other at first plotline, because of my love of Pride and Prejudice, which Morrill is obviously a total fangirl about too, based on the numerous references. Shakespeare comes up a lot too, of course, but, if this is actually a retelling of anything (I thought it was a Shakespeare retelling, though I suspect I made that up), it's of P&P.

In Meant to Be, Julia has to deal with a lot of personal issues surrounding her own expectations. She has love built up into this epic construct in her mind, and it's totally messing her up. Again, I relate to this to an insane degree. Her realizations are important ones and I think this sends a great message to teens compared to all of the obnoxious teen love lasts forever stuff. While Jason and Julia do, I think, have amazing chemistry, I also don't know what I see them making a great couple for all time, and I like that.

The last thing I must mention is the setting. Meant to Be takes place during a class trip to London. Julia has signed up with out her best friend and is stuck with a whole bunch of other teens she mostly doesn't like while trying to enjoy herself in a foreign country. Girl, I have been there and it is unfortunate, especially since I didn't have a Jason. Meant to Be is one of those books that makes you feel like you're traveling. I already wanted to go to London so, so much, and now I want to just pack up and go right now, though I'm far too plan-oriented for that, as Julia would understand.

Though I had a couple of small issues with Meant to Be (mostly to do with the cell phones the school provided for them during the trip, which I so do not see happening), I completely adored the whole book and will be devouring everything else Morrill writes as soon as I possibly can.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A review from Bookworm1858 November 25, 2012

By bookworm1858 VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Ah, what high hopes I had for this! The early reviews I read gave me the overwhelming thought that I would love it. There's a nerdy uptight girl who clashes with a free-spirited boy who tries to loosen her up all while exploring the gorgeous historical city of London. I figured I'd identify with the main character and swoon for the guy.

Well I did click with Julia initially. She has great plans for enjoying this trip to London especially because of the special meaning it has for her parents. Although her father is now deceased, she anticipates feeling connected with him again by seeing the places that were so special to them. But as the book wore on, I thought Julia got kind of the raw end of the stick. The aforementioned "free-spirited boy", named Jason, is kind of a jerk. I found him unbelievably annoying. I hated how he (and others around her) were pushing her to be more like him. Yes, she was a little uptight and didn't need to schedule everything so strictly but I didn't want her to be more like him. I wanted him to be more like her-demonstrating respect, not freaking out their chaperone (and they really should have had several chaperones) by running around a foreign city, and just generally not doing whatever stupid thing pops into their head. So Jason didn't work for me.

There was also an event that might have been a surprise so I'm not going to spoil it but which was quite obvious to me (the phone thing was kind of ridiculous-would the school really buy that many phones for these students?). I don't have much else to say because this is a very character-driven novel. Since Julia and Jason were unappealing to me, it soured me on the whole novel. However readers who love London-set novels will surely enjoy that aspect as I did.

Cover: I really love this cover-I think it's SO pretty.