The Dating Debate (Dating Dilemmas #1) by Chris Cannon
Thanks to Netgalley and Entangled Crush for an ARC for a fair review.
Publish date: February 5, 2018
Despite not liking Valentine’s Day, or many other holidays for that matter, Nina finds herself the object of a lie when West says they are going to a dance together. Not one to go back on her word, Nina insists that they stick to what they said was happening. The closer the dance comes the more she starts to get to know West, except he’s keeping something important from her, and the one thing she hates most is being lied to and feeling unwanted.
The Story
This will be my fourth Chris Cannon book (previously reviewed: The Boomerang Boyfriend, Blackmail Boyfriend, The Boyfriend Bet. I decided to give her yet another go because I just a sucker for Entangled Crush books. In the world of judgement upon adults reading YA books, this is probably where I have zero shame. I like reading about silly teen kids juggling their fragile hearts. Maybe it’s just nice to get away from some of the heavier fantasy world building. Cannon tends to stick with the same basic formula with her stories, and I think in this book was one of her better stories. As far as YA contemporary it’s not awful, but it’s not the most amazing thing I have read. If you are easily eye-rolled over cute cringey-ness I would say to stay away from this book, in fact…any Entangled Crush book if it wasn’t obvious enough. But if you’re a fan non graphic (hugs, hand holding, & kissing only), dual POV of confused swoony teens then by all means, read it.
There were a few things that were just a little off as far as this book went for me. One being that sometimes the characters didn’t really speak their age. I don’t know any American teenage that would full on say “lets watch television” when as a norm we say “TV” or even a much more relevant term of asking to binge watch some Netflix would have fit the story a bit better.
There was this instance where one of the characters Googles the number for the police. As in, he had to look up the number for 911. Now before you go and point out that maybe he was looking for the crime check number for a non emergent reason, let me just say that the reason for calling the police warranted the actual 911. A full grown teenager should know one of the most memorable phone number besides 867-5309 (now that warrants an okay reason for a Millenial to Google a number)
What I did like was that, though this was a typical YA contemporary, it was pretty void of any generalized girl hate, there wasn’t an excessive amount of half smirking boys, and there was minimal mention to anything happening to our protagonists’ bodily functions (blushing, feeling hot, stomachs turning, skin tingling).
The Characters
Nina was continually referred to as a hippy chick and I found no instance in the book that made me think that. I’m not sure if it was in reference to her natural instinct to hand out hugs or for her and her mom to try and feed people when they come over. Neither of these traits scream hippy to me.
Another thing that bothered me was that Nina was supposed to be this huge book nerd, but only Harry Potter references filled the book, and a LOT of them. Now I am a fan of the ol’ HP, but come on, here is a girl that a lot of us can relate to: stays up late reading, ogles book cases, is excited about going to the library or bookstore…but in reality, we don’t ONLY refer to Harry Potter.
West was supposed to be this brooding hottie next door, and rather than calling the guy broody, introvert probably would have fit better. Broody gives me the impression that he is perpetually angry, when he really wasn’t, just more or less kept to himself and told his neighbors to stay on their side of the driveway.
I liked that both characters had personalities that were obviously stemmed from their home lives and how their family drama and experiences have honed how they react. Nina’s perpetual need to stick to commitments and telling the truth as well as West’s tidiness as well as dislike of having things are both reasonable reactions to what has happened in their lives.
The Soundtrack
Taylor Swift – Call it What You Want
