On the last day of her junior year, Hannah's boyfriend Ryan dumped her. Facing a summer of loneliness, Hannah turns to her best friend Ava for comfort. Ava does what BFFs do: she stays by Hannah's side...until it's time for Ava to head up to Maine for the summer. Also left behind is Ava's boyfriend, Noah, who's such a great guy he gets Hannah a job at the diner he waits tables at. Slowly, Hannah comes out of her funk thanks to Noah's good conversation and their fun times at the diner. But things get complicated when their friendship turns into attraction--and one night, into a passionate kiss. The novel opens on the first day of senior year; the day Hannah is going to see Ava, Ryan, and Noah all in one place. Over the course of the day secrets and betrayals are revealed, and alliances are broken and reformed. In the end, everyone is paired up once again, but not the way you might think...
Sometimes It Happens
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About the Author
Lauren Barnholdt is the author of the teen novels The Thing About the Truth, Sometimes It Happens, One Night That Changes Everything, Two-Way Street, and Watch Me. She is also the author of the middle grade novels The Secret Identity of Devon Delaney, Devon Delaney Should Totally Know Better, Four Truths and a Lie, Rules for Secret-Keeping, Fake Me a Match, and Girl Meets Ghost. She lives in Waltham, Massachusetts. Visit her at LaurenBarnholdt.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The First Day of Senior Year
I really should not be so scared. I mean, I’ve done this millions of times before. Okay, maybe not millions. But for the last twelve years, on every weekday minus summers and vacations, I’ve gone to school. And I’ve never been afraid before. (Well, except for maybe a little bit in kindergarten, but isn’t everyone a little afraid in kindergarten? And besides, even then I wasn’t freaking out or anything. Not like Layna Hodge, who threw up all over the play box in the corner.)
Today, the first day of senior year, I’m terrified. This is because there is a very good chance that at some point today I will:
-
a.lose the love of my life,
-
b.lose my best friend, or
-
c.have an awkward encounter with the boy who broke my heart last year. (Note: This is a different boy than the previously mentioned love of my life. [See a.])
I take a deep breath and grip the steering wheel of my new car, then pull into a spot in the visitor lot of my high school. I’m technically not supposed to be parked here, but the visitor lot is way closer to my homeroom than the student lot, and since it’s the first day of school, I’m pretty sure I can get away with it. Plus it won’t be as obvious if I have to peel out of here and make an escape. Okay, I tell myself, you can do this. You are invincible; nothing can rattle you. You have nerves of steel; you are a confident, strong woman; you—
There’s a knock on the passenger side window and I scream, then immediately hit the automatic door locks.
I look over. Oh. It’s only Lacey.
She knocks on the window again, and I reluctantly unlock the doors.
She slides into the passenger seat, her long, red curly hair pooling around her shoulders. She smells like coffee and strawberry-mango shampoo.
“Hey,” she says, “What’s wrong? Why’d you freak out when I knocked on your window? And why are you parked in the visitor lot? It took me forever to find you.”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say. Which is a lie, of course. But I can’t tell Lacey that. She knows nothing about what went on this summer. She knows nothing of the fact that my best friend Ava is coming back today, that everything is different, and that everything is horrible. That I’m going to see Noah, that I’m going to see Sebastian, that I’m going to maybe end up in a mental institution by the end of the day. Although, a mental institution actually might be preferable to going to school, so that might not be such a bad thing, now that I think about it.
“Just normal first day of school nerves,” I say brightly.
“First day of school nerves?” Lacey says, like she’s never heard of them. Which kind of makes no sense, since Lacey is one of the most nervous people I know. “You need caffeine then,” she says. “It will fix you right up.” She holds out the cardboard carrier that’s in her hand. It’s filled with three cups from Starbucks, and one’s marked with my fave: a large vanilla latte with Splenda and extra cream.
“Thanks.” I accept the huge coffee and take a sip. I don’t really buy into her reasoning that I need the caffeine, since it definitely isn’t going to calm me down. But maybe it’ll give me a shot of energy that will make me so buzzed I’ll be all excited to go into school. On the other hand, it’s only caffeine, not magic.
“Where’s Noah?” she asks. “I brought him one, too.” Of course she did. Coffee with a shot of espresso, extra sugar, extra cream. The same drink he had every single day this summer, when the three of us worked together at Cooley’s Diner, but we always brought in our own coffee because the stuff at Cooley’s tastes disgusting. (Cooley’s Diner coffee = mud, only, like, more bitter and tinged with the taste of a dirty cup.)
“Noah?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light. My hands tighten around my coffee, and I almost spill the whole thing all over myself. “I dunno.” I shrug, like Noah hasn’t even crossed my mind, when, of course, he’s the only thing I’ve been thinking about.
“Didn’t you guys drive to school together?”
“No.”
“Why not? You guys drove to work together every day over the summer.”
“Not every day,” I say. “And besides, I have a car now.” I run my hand over the steering wheel of my new car, the car that took me all summer to save up to buy. It’s red (perfect), four doors (perfect), a 2005 (adequate) and has 120K miles on it (not so perfect, but beggars can’t be choosers, especially when it comes to transportation.) “And besides,” I add, “Noah drives to school with Ava usually.”
“Oh, right.” Lacey wrinkles up her nose. “I forgot that Ava’s back.” She says “Ava” like it’s a dirty word. “Sorry,” she says. “I know she’s your friend.”
“That’s okay.” If Lacey thinks I’m acting weird, she doesn’t say anything, which is a good sign. If Lacey doesn’t realize anything’s going on, maybe Ava won’t either. And if Ava doesn’t, maybe Noah won’t. And that way we can just forget everything that happened this summer, especially what happened last night. Just push it all under the rug and start fresh. La, la, la, there it goes, like some kind of garbage being taken out to the curb, poof! I start to feel a little better. Maybe everything is going to work out after all. Of course, I don’t want to be the kind of girl with a scandalous secret, but sometimes you have to take what you can get and just—
Suddenly, something slams into the back of my car, and my whole body flies forward, my chest hitting the steering wheel.
“Shit!” Lacey says. Her fingers tighten around her coffee and the lid goes flying off, her cappuccino sloshing over the sides of the cup and splattering the front of the glittery silver tank top she’s wearing. “Shit, shit, shit!” She swivels her head around, strands of her hair whipping against her face.
I look in the rearview mirror. A red car (something expensive—maybe a Lexus?) has backed into me, and the driver, a girl wearing camouflage capris (doesn’t she know those are so five years ago?), comes rushing out of the driver’s side, and then peers down at my bumper. She looks like she’s about to burst into tears.
I close my eyes for a moment, and then open my door and climb out, Lacey hot on my heels.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Lacey demands. She pulls the sunglasses she’s wearing down off the top of her head and slides them over her eyes.
“Oh my God, I’m like sooo sorry,” the girl says. She’s younger than us (probably a sophomore?) and she twists her hands into a knot in front of her. Her face is getting all scrunchy, like she really might be about to start crying.
“It’s okay,” I say, kneeling down and inspecting my bumper. There’s a tiny scratch, about two inches long, running down one side of it. “It looks like it’s just a small scratch.”
“A small scratch?” Lacey yells. She bends down and looks at the car. “You know how much small scratches cost to get fixed, Hannah? Like thousands of dollars!”
“I’m so sorry,” the girl says again. She’s wearing Converse sneakers, a black tank top, and about three million pounds of black eyeliner.
“It’s okay,” I say. She’s obviously one of those gothy girls who, like, pretends she’s over everything, but inside is about five seconds away from crying constantly. Seriously, goth girls cannot handle anything.
“My dad is going to flip,” Goth Girl says. “He just got me this car. For a birthday present.”
“Oh, God,” Lacey says. I’ll bet she’s rolling her eyes under the sunglasses, thinking of the hours and hours we spent this summer behind the counter at Cooley’s, sweating under the broken air conditioner and serving bottomless cups of coffee to the old men who would come in every day, sit for hours, and then tip us a dollar.
“Look,” I say to the girl, before Lacey can tear into her again, “Can you just give me your insurance information?” I guess that’s what you’re supposed to do in these situations. I mean, I’m not completely sure, since I’ve never actually been in a car accident. Until a few days ago, I never even had a car.
“Right,” the girl says. She heads to her car, rummages around in her glove compartment, and comes back. She carefully copies everything down onto a sheet of paper from a brand new black binder that’s covered with stickers of bands I’ve never heard of, then rips it out and gives it to me.
“Thanks, Jemima,” I say, glancing down at her name on the paper. Jemima? No wonder she looks so nervous. With a name like that you’re probably used to bad things happening to you. Starting, of course, with your parents naming you Jemima.
“Why were you pulling out of a space, anyway?” Lacey asks. “School’s about to start. Shouldn’t you have been pulling into a space?” She looks down at the coffee stain on her tank top. “Does your insurance cover clothing? Because this tank top was extremely expensive.” It’s a lie, of course. Lacey got that tank top for $12.99 at Old Navy.
“I forgot something,” Jemima says, chewing on her bottom lip. “At home. So I was going back to get it. And I’ll pay for your tank top. How much did it cost?” ...
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The "it" in Sometimes It Happens is ambiguous when we first start reading. Is it sex? Romance? Love? As the story unfolds, we realize that "it" purposely has many layers and part of the fun of this novel is peeling back each one to see what lies underneath.
Lauren Barnholdt introduces us to Hannah and the difficult situation she finds herself in on the first day of senior year: After being cheated on by her ex-boyfriend Sebastian at the end of junior year, Hannah found solace over the summer by working with Noah, her best friend Ava's boyfriend. The issue is that Ava has been away working at a camp all summer, and the night before the first day of school, Hannah and Noah slept together.
At this early point in the story, it would be easy to think that "it" is sex. And if this were just another story about cheating, it might be easy to blame and hate Hannah. But Barnholdt immediately shows us that Hannah is a complex character. She deeply regrets what happened because she knows it will hurt her best friend, yet she also feels connected to Noah. From the first page, we realize that this story is not black and white; shades of gray mark each character.
Alternating chapters switch from the first day of senior year back to the summer. So while we know what happened between Hannah and Noah from very early on in the book, the chapters subtly build suspense as the pages unravel the mystery of how Hannah could come to hurt her best friend.
Anticipation abounds in the chapters focusing on the first day of senior year (which, by the way, is written as the worst school day EVER) because the reader is unsurehow Hannah will react when she runs into Ava or Noah or Sebastian. This heightens the suspense in the summer chapters as we eagerly watch Hannah and Noah slowly building their relationship (despite trying not to). Calling Sometimes it Happens a "page turner" would be the understatement of the year.
As Noah and Hannah unexpectedly connect, we wonder if "it" is romance - the unexpected kind that hits you in the face when you're least ready for it. Noah and Hannah are at least somewhat self-aware (if often uncommunicative) and realize that they're falling for each other. But of course, they both want to preserve their relationships with Ava and so take great strides to avoid each other. Ava, however, is not so innocent as we thought. Hannah discovers that Ava repeatedly lied to her, and it's even hinted that Ava is cheating on Noah at summer camp (as I said, shades of gray!).
As we watch Noah and Hannah fall for each other, we think: Ahh, "it" is clearly love. (For they do ultimately fall hard for each other despite their best efforts not to.) But just as each character is multi-faceted, so too is "it." "It" encompasses all the craziness that is being in high school and learning to deal with complex emotions and situations. "It" is definitely sex AND romance AND love. But it's also friendship drama and difficult consequences. "It" is that mistake you made that changed your life forever, but was maybe the best thing you ever did.
You won't walk away from Sometimes it Happens feeling like you've spent a lot of time thinking deeply (it definitely reads more like a beach book), but it nonetheless tackles some tough issues in a bright, quick read.
Lauren Barnholdt introduces us to Hannah and the difficult situation she finds herself in on the first day of senior year: After being cheated on by her ex-boyfriend Sebastian at the end of junior year, Hannah found solace over the summer by working with Noah, her best friend Ava's boyfriend. The issue is that Ava has been away working at a camp all summer, and the night before the first day of school, Hannah and Noah slept together.
At this early point in the story, it would be easy to think that "it" is sex. And if this were just another story about cheating, it might be easy to blame and hate Hannah. But Barnholdt immediately shows us that Hannah is a complex character. She deeply regrets what happened because she knows it will hurt her best friend, yet she also feels connected to Noah. From the first page, we realize that this story is not black and white; shades of gray mark each character.
Alternating chapters switch from the first day of senior year back to the summer. So while we know what happened between Hannah and Noah from very early on in the book, the chapters subtly build suspense as the pages unravel the mystery of how Hannah could come to hurt her best friend.
Anticipation abounds in the chapters focusing on the first day of senior year (which, by the way, is written as the worst school day EVER) because the reader is unsurehow Hannah will react when she runs into Ava or Noah or Sebastian. This heightens the suspense in the summer chapters as we eagerly watch Hannah and Noah slowly building their relationship (despite trying not to). Calling Sometimes it Happens a "page turner" would be the understatement of the year.
As Noah and Hannah unexpectedly connect, we wonder if "it" is romance - the unexpected kind that hits you in the face when you're least ready for it. Noah and Hannah are at least somewhat self-aware (if often uncommunicative) and realize that they're falling for each other. But of course, they both want to preserve their relationships with Ava and so take great strides to avoid each other. Ava, however, is not so innocent as we thought. Hannah discovers that Ava repeatedly lied to her, and it's even hinted that Ava is cheating on Noah at summer camp (as I said, shades of gray!).
As we watch Noah and Hannah fall for each other, we think: Ahh, "it" is clearly love. (For they do ultimately fall hard for each other despite their best efforts not to.) But just as each character is multi-faceted, so too is "it." "It" encompasses all the craziness that is being in high school and learning to deal with complex emotions and situations. "It" is definitely sex AND romance AND love. But it's also friendship drama and difficult consequences. "It" is that mistake you made that changed your life forever, but was maybe the best thing you ever did.
You won't walk away from Sometimes it Happens feeling like you've spent a lot of time thinking deeply (it definitely reads more like a beach book), but it nonetheless tackles some tough issues in a bright, quick read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By JesusJuice
Format:Hardcover
This book is great. Sometimes "It" Happens. Is it love, romance, sex, or is it all the above. Its all of the above. Ive read so many book like this one, the main girl ends up falling in love with a guy, that guy likes her too, but he is in a relationship with the main girls best friend. And then "it" happens. Love happens, sex or something like it happens, and it all leads up to a surprising ending. The author introduces us to Hannah, Ava, Sebastian and Noah, four character in a intermixed square. Sebastian dumps Hannah, who later falls in love with Noah, who is in a relationship with Ava, and who just so happens to be Hannahs best friend. Some surprising things happen in this book. Like the relationship with Lucy and Hannah. Then the surprise [which you do see coming] with Hannah and Noah. I like this book. It was a good read. There are a lot of surprises as well as an ending you did see coming.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By TheReaderBee
Format:Hardcover
Sometimes it Happens is a quick, interesting read by author Lauren Barnholdt. This is my first novel by this author, but I will definitely be back for more.
Most of the characters in this book were pretty likable. I liked the main character, Hannah. She was just your all around average girl, not popular, but not unpopular either. It was really nice just having her be average. She definitely acted like a teen, and at some points made weird decisions, but I found the character to be pretty believable. I did not care for her best friend, Ava. She's definitely the type of person that I would have avoided in school. Noah, Ava's boyfriend, was definitely swoon-worthy. Lacey, their co-worker, is great. She's definitely the kind of friend any girl would want to have.
The book is quick paced; I had it finished in no time. The writing style was simple, and easy to follow. The plot is believable. I thought Ms. Barnholdt did a great job of showing that yes, although it's cheating, sometimes it can happen.
Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable read for me. I'm really looking forward to reading more of Ms. Barnholdts books now.
Happy Reading!
Most of the characters in this book were pretty likable. I liked the main character, Hannah. She was just your all around average girl, not popular, but not unpopular either. It was really nice just having her be average. She definitely acted like a teen, and at some points made weird decisions, but I found the character to be pretty believable. I did not care for her best friend, Ava. She's definitely the type of person that I would have avoided in school. Noah, Ava's boyfriend, was definitely swoon-worthy. Lacey, their co-worker, is great. She's definitely the kind of friend any girl would want to have.
The book is quick paced; I had it finished in no time. The writing style was simple, and easy to follow. The plot is believable. I thought Ms. Barnholdt did a great job of showing that yes, although it's cheating, sometimes it can happen.
Overall, this was a pretty enjoyable read for me. I'm really looking forward to reading more of Ms. Barnholdts books now.
Happy Reading!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book#
OMG! I don't like reading but, this is literally this is a fantastic book! I've never been so interested in a book. I recommend this book. Especially to like 13-16 year olds.
Published 1 month ago by Megan Dye
5.0 out of 5 stars
sometimes it happens
I totally loved this book!!!!! it was definitely a page turner!! I didn't want to put the book down once I started reading it!! I hope all of you read this awesome book!!
Published 2 months ago by leilanie
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ohmigod!
This book was amazing. I didn't want it to end. Read in a few days. I got so attached to the characters. It's kind of hard to let them go now that I'm done reading the book. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Alexandrea
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sometimes it Happens
I liked this book so much! I read it in 2 sittings (would've been one if i didn't have to wash the dishes). This book was so suspenseful, it kept me reading. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Sugarcookie545
5.0 out of 5 stars
Complicated and well written story
Hannah feels abandoned by her selfish yet loyal best friend Ava when Ava moves to Maine for the summer. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Kimberly C
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing!
I didn't think that I would enjoy this book as much as I did. If you buy this book, you won't regret it. :)
Published 4 months ago by kathrine
4.0 out of 5 stars
good book
I really enjoyed this book. Her friend got on my nerves. Another fell in love with my best friend's boyfriend story.Oh well, sometimes it happens.See what I did there? Read more
Published 4 months ago by Jeff Parks
4.0 out of 5 stars
Addictively realistic...
Lauren Barnholdt's books are addictive, funny, and realistic. Hannah is such a great friend, she is honest and loyal. She also cared about people a lot. I really liked her. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Sarah Woodard
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sometimes it happens
I believe this book to be amazing! I plan on recommending it to anyone who has an interest I young adult/chick lit novels!
Published 4 months ago by Francesca Polistina
5.0 out of 5 stars
reviewed back in July 2011 (catching up on posting)
I really, really enjoyed this book. I thought it was a wonderful and refreshing read. The story flip flops between the first day of senior high and then back to the start of summer... Read more
Published 6 months ago by mandy I read Indie (twimom101 book blog)
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