Never Never

By: Abeeha Shahid

Never Never is the first installment of the YA thriller series, co-written by two of New York Times best-selling authors, Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher. The book was highly anticipated by Hoover and Fisher’s fans, and the hype made me pick up the book and give it a read. However, it turned out to be quite underwhelming and not intriguing enough to make me continue with the rest of the series.

Written from the point of view of the two lead characters - Charlie and Silas - Never Never begins with both of them waking up in the middle of their class with no memories of who they are, who their families are, or how they look. Together they form a bond as they try to figure out the mystery of their past and find answers to an endless amount of questions.

The concept of waking up with no recollection of their past and working through the confusion to find out what happened sounds interesting except what the book did with the plot; it failed at the execution. Charlie and Silas spend the whole book wondering how their pre-memory loss selves would react in a situation rather than trying to find an answer. As the book unfurls we learn that they can recall song lyrics, car models, and other miscellaneous details, anything but their life. And they never fail to mention it every time they can.

Every new piece of information they uncover feels randomly thrown in with little or close to no relevance to the plot. The obvious leads that can help them trace their footsteps back to what they might have been doing before they lost their memories are ignored and everything feels like it’s thrown in haphazardly with no actual reason. There are no big revelations or plot twists and that’s how it goes on before it abruptly ends right as the only plot-relevant information is revealed in the last two pages.

The characters are flat, one dimensional and have very inconsistent personalities, which becomes hard to ignore when the book is only 150 pages long. Charlie, for example, is described as being fiercely independent only for moments like this to completely contradict those statements;

“Charlie glances up at me (Silas), silently asking for permission to follow her (fortune teller). I nod and we follow the women…”

Silas has no actual personality other than thinking about Charlie, photography, and being kind as suggested by that one forced scene forcibly included so Charlie can tell us how kind Silas is and she is not.

While preference for writing style varies for everyone, the writing in this book is one thing that for me made reading the book a very frustrating experience. It was juvenile and redundant with a repetitive sentence structure. Often, short sentences are used to emphasize a certain point or make a statement stand out. The overuse of short and simple sentences throughout the text makes it choppy and distracting, combined with that a clinical approach to describing events made it impossible to discern what might and might not be significant to the actual storyline. To properly explain what I mean by that, here are some examples;

“Mother has gone to sleep. Mother doesn’t care. It's perfect for the situation I’m in.”

“I don’t stop until I reach the car. Something happened in there. Something that made Silas lose his shit. I start the car and Janette lets out a loud burp. We both start laughing at the same time.”

“Silas. I like Silas. Something about his good boy manners. And his nose - he has a wicked cool nose.

Aside from the plot, characters, and the writing style, the book is littered with problematic themes and it is the subtlety with which they are ingrained in the narrative that’s concerning. Whether it’s characters interacting, inner monologue, or dialogue, they should not be normalized enough for them to exist as background elements. For example, there is toxic masculinity;

“ You can’t trust a guy who wears a pink shirt.”

There is Charlie trying to justify cheating;

“I think if you cheat, it should be someone worthy of your sin.”

There is Silas telling Charlie not to be hard on herself for cheating because he cheated too;

“Would it make you feel better to know I was cheating on you with the guidance counselor”

The absurdity of this line is just astounding.

There is Silas being possessive and controlling;

‘“Text him back,” I say to her. “Tell him you don’t want him to text you anymore and that you want to work it out with me.”

At this point, Silas is just as much of a stranger to Charlie as anyone else is and all this claim is based on is a past relationship they do not remember.

And then there is this;

“My first thought is ugly. But it’s more of a fact than a judgment.”

Beauty is not an entirely objective concept. Therefore, to call someone ugly is a judgment and no it’s not a fact.

Overall the book has very little going for it but then again that is completely my opinion. Some people might find the book as one that’s right up their alley and that’s fine it’s their preference. It's just not one I would recommend. My favorite quote from the entire book, though, has to be;

“My stomach feels oily”

Because don’t you hate it when your stomach feels oily too?