Today I'm reviewing Severed Heads, Broken Hearts by Robyn Schneider, which has just been recently re-released under the much better title of The Beginning of Everything.
This book is YA lit and very much aimed at the John Green crowd. So much so that both the quote on the front and the back of the book actually mentions The Fault in our Stars. I was not cynical about this however, a girl has got to get her books sold after all and I don't begrudge anyone a bit of bandwagon jumping.
The novel is centred around a Californian high school senior and tennis star called Ezra whose life is irrevocably changed after being involved in a car accident that shatters his knee. Now robbed of a promising tennis career and abandoned by the popular crowd, Ezra begins to wonder what he really wants from life.
Forced to take debate class instead of PE, Ezra meets Cassidy, the mysterious new girl in town. The blurb describes Cassidy as "intelligent, effortless and wonderfully weird, she is unlike anyone Ezra's ever met before".
I was given this book as a present, and I probably would have picked it up if I'd seen it in the store myself. With all the allusions to TFIOS, you really think you're on to a winner. However, all the hype and marketing around this book just set my expectations too high and in the end the novel failed to deliver.
I found the book to be just on the cusp of a truly great YA novel. One thing I enjoyed about it was that it had fantastically realised characters. I felt you really got to know every character well and even the side characters had well fleshed out and relatable back stories. I also felt that at the heart of the novel Schneider had a very good story of self discovery and adolescence. The portrayals of high school friendships and relationships were very real and believable.
One of the issues I had with this book however was the main character of Cassidy. She was far too "manic pixie dream girl" for my liking. I thought that for a book that had such a strong supporting cast of characters it was a shame that the leading lady's characterisation was a bit all over the place.
The novel as a whole was also a bit all over they place stylistically. While Schneider has some really excellent lyrical passages in the novel, her writing style really seemed to waver throughout the book.
Finally, my biggest issue with the book was that it was very derivative and had a plot twist you could see from space. I know I'm coming to this YA from an adults point of view, but I think even the least perceptive teens could guess what was going on!
From what I've said so far it may seem that I didn't enjoy this book but that isn't the case at all! While if found fault with it technically, it was still a very enjoyable read. One similarity to Green is that this book was very readable and I was actually interested enough in the characters to care about how it ended. At 352 pages the novel is fairly short and made for good reading on my lunch breaks.
Overall I'd give the book 3/5 stars due to the fact I found the book relatable but found myself enjoying the antics of the supporting cast much more than the titular romance.
I'd love to hear from anyone that has also read this book! Leave me a comment below or add me on my GoodReads account here.
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