Veronica –
☆☆☆☆
Following the death of her big sister, Beth meets Chase at a party and they
have a one-night stand. When senior year begins and Chase is at her school,
Beth learns his secret and things between them become complicated as does
Beth’s life. Beth and Chase have a strong connection in a way they shouldn’t
have given their circumstances. I haven’t read a forbidden romance like this
before and I really didn’t know where it was going.
Chase’s ability to keep calm while he is harassed and bullied by pretty much
everyone shows amazing strength. He is a guy who, at times, has wisdom beyond
his years and he helps Beth see some things in a different light, helping her
grow up. I loved their relationship and I think that fact that it is difficult
made it that much sweeter.
Beth struggles with her ridiculously controlling parents. They are weighed down
by grief, and Beth’s fight to have her voice heard, either by her peers, her
parents, or her teachers, is an immense source of frustration for Beth. I was
right there with her, feeling everything she felt, angry and frustrated on her
behalf.
There is plenty of teenage drama in this story coming from Beth’s friends,
classmates, and her sister’s ex, Jeff, who quickly shows Beth he isn’t who she
thought he was.
I started reading
One Small Thing on
a cold and rainy Sunday morning and I didn’t get out of bed until the book was
finished four hours later, happy and a little emotional.
One Small Thing is an excellent young adult novel about grief,
forgiveness, love, and growing up.
Kris –
☆☆☆☆
I really enjoyed this book, it had the perfect amount of drama and teenage
angst to keep it easy to read without wanting to scream at the characters too
much for being idiots.
Beth is going through a major change in her life, she's acting out and trying
to find herself after her sister’s unfortunate accidental death. Beth's parents
keep holding tighter and tighter every time Beth tries to break free, they're
worried about losing their other daughter. Understandable from a parent’s
perspective, but it was almost over the top what this mother and father were
doing to their remaining child. I got angry at them numerous times! I have no
idea how I might react to losing a child and can’t really say for sure I
wouldn't put alarms on all the doors and windows, but… maybe? Chase is also
going through a major life change, having just been released from juvie for an
accidental death charge, he's at a party and hooks up with a girl who's looking
to have some fun. Sure didn't know it'd be the sister of the girl he hit with
his car three long years ago. I think Chase was written perfectly with just the
right amount of self-loathing but wanting to be a better person. I fell in love
with his character quickly!
The mean kids at school added a good dynamic of "us against the
world" to the fledgling relationship between Chase and Beth and I was
quite invested in the entire story. I felt the ending was a good way to pull
the story together and help Beth's parents understand that accidents happen,
and maybe forgiveness is the key to moving on in life after a tragedy.
Jordan –
☆☆☆☆
I first read Erin Watt’s The Royals series, which immediately had me hooked.
Now, I never pass up the opportunity to read a book by Erin Watt. This writing
duo knows exactly how to grab my attention and keep it from start to finish,
which is how I always seem to find myself reading until the sun comes up.
One Small Thing follows the story of
Beth, who is just starting her senior year in high school, which should be an
exciting milestone for her, but nothing has been the same in her life since her
sister died. Her parents can’t stop hovering over her every move, but Beth
can’t handle being smothered by their fear of losing another daughter. After
sneaking out one night to a party, she meets Chase, who is finally out of juvie
and ready to start fresh. When Beth learns about the role Chase played the
night of her sister’s death, she knows she shouldn’t have anything to do with
him, but she can’t seem to stay away.
One Small Thing wasn’t exactly my
favorite by Erin Watt, but it still has that perfect addictive quality that I
have always found in this writing duo’s books. Plus, let’s not forget their
ability to make the most swoon worthy book boyfriends. However, it just felt
like some characters’ reactions to certain scenarios seemed so extreme and the
only level-headed character was Chase. This doesn’t change the fact that I
still found it to be an enticing read and can’t wait to see what Erin Watt has
in store for us next!
4 STARS for Erin Watt’s
One Small Thing
Sarah –
☆☆☆
OMG – the DRAMA!!! This angst-fuelled young adult romance takes the tired good
girl/bad boy trope to another level when Beth accidentally sleeps with the boy
who killed her sister.
Beth and Chase’s attempts to reconcile their attraction with the pain Chase
inflicted on Beth’s family are deliciously gritty, but I didn’t completely love
either Beth or Chase. Beth gets increasingly whiny and miserable and I found
her more childish behaviour difficult to connect with. Chase takes the strong,
silent self-loathing thing a little bit too far. He is monosyllabic for most of
the book and is never quite worthy of Beth’s starry-eyed adoration
While Beth and Chase were both interesting enough to hold my attention, the
other characters are predictable stock YA clichés. The bland, generic ensemble
cast includes super strict parents, spiteful mean girls, misfits from the wrong
side of town, and a rich kid who isn’t quite as nice as he seems. The
characters are neither convincing or interesting.
I was intrigued by the premise of this story, but the concept is better than
the execution. The plot circles around tediously normal high school life and
Beth’s endless emotionally incontinent cycles of
rebellion/rage/lust/heartbreak/isolation. Chase’s whole story doesn’t quite
make sense to me and without more dynamic characters, the book doesn’t deliver
the emotional impact promised in the blurb.
Erica –
☆☆☆
3 FRUSTRATING Stars
One Small Thing is a standalone.
Even with a few major discrepancies, I was hooked from the start and read
feverishly in one sitting to the very end. I was eager to know what happened
next, finding the novel to hit most of the notes that draw me in and resonate.
A side of angsty deliciousness with the entree being frustration.
Beth lost her elder sister three years ago when she was hit by a car, losing
not only her sister but the way of life she was used to living. Her big sister
and her boyfriend, her parents seeing her as a human being, and her autonomy.
Chase is the brooding bad boy, who beneath all the black and monosyllabic
grunts is a self-sacrificing martyr.
Other than Beth and Chase, every other character in the novel was 'off',
written in a bizarre fashion outside of how people act/react/behave.
The frustration begins with Beth's parents lost in their grief, stifling her to
the point she feels imprisoned in their 'love' and need to constantly keep her
safe. While I understood this from an emotional level, it was hard to swallow
from an intellectual level, because Beth's parents were the extreme of
irrational, creating what they feared the most. In fact, I felt every adult in
the novel irrational and acting outside of how human nature dictates to create
this almost
Twilight Zone level of
voicelessness.
Parents. Teachers. Guidance Counselors. Principle. School Board. Students.
Friends. Police. All pod people.
While frustrated, I ate up the voicelessness and powerlessness as the angsty
deliciousness it was meant to be. In fact, I felt Beth and Chase the only sane
individuals in the novel. Perhaps the authors planned it in such a way, but the
only characters who acted within the bounds of human nature were Beth and
Chase.
Beth lashes out, doing things most teenagers do to test the limits of her
tether to her parents, while flexing her wings and demanding independence. Some
of the things she did were dangerous, but she is seventeen, lacking the
emotional maturity and actual brain development to fully predict the
consequences of her actions. Beth wasn't being treated like a human being,
rather a placeholder with zero connection to her parents, standing in for the
lost sister.
Beth has an instant connection to a boy at a party and a hookup changes the
course of her life.
The side cast of characters drove me batshit with how irrational they all
behaved – brainwashed or grief-stricken to all act like pod people. Every
friend you have had since kindergarten would NOT call your parents and tell
them every move you make. While I enjoyed white-knuckling my Kindle in
frustration, the major dependencies took away from the overall experience.
Beth's big sister's boyfriend took off to England to live with his grandparents
to deal with his grief. Rachel and her boyfriend were the same age, in the same
grade, their next school year would have been senior year... .... .... Beth
kept mentioning how they were in high school when she was in middle school and
she looked up to them because they were older and wiser and she was still a
little girl... .... THREE+ years later, Beth has her first day of senior year,
and Rachel's boyfriend is in the same grade as her. No one takes three years
off of school and is allowed to come back. THREE YEARS. He is a grown man,
turning 20 while in a school with 14-18 year-olds, and I also think his age was
off by a year, judging by the timeline. He would have turned 21 that year, no
one able to legally buy their classmates alcohol would attend class beside
them. As Scarlet voices, Jeff easily influences them because he's older and
wiser than they are, which is why no school district would allow this. I had
brand-new teachers his age when I was a freshman in high school. Yes, there are
older kids in high schools everywhere, those who failed a grade or several and
never left for three years – they have continually attended school, always
enrolled as a student. The molestation and statutory issues that could arise
from Jeff dating his classmates, depending on the age of consent laws in that
state. He would have been at least a sophomore or junior in college, not a
senior in high school.
Another point of contention: juvenile detention = / = prison. Not the same
thing. Prison is used 99% of the time. Mayor or not, Chase was an adult, a
felon, gone for three years. He would have attended classes in the detention
center, as he was a school-aged minor. Unless he is emancipated, it's required
by law that he get an education. He would have had a GED, not went back to high
school after spending the entirety of his high school career in a detention
center. He would have missed three school years and would not have been
advanced to a grade when he didn't earn credits to be in that specific grade.
That's not how ANY of that works.
The ages and timeline were off for Chase and Rachel's boyfriend, Jeff, and I
watched as the authors slowly made them younger than they would have been to
rationalize them being in the same grade with Beth, after hammering home how
Rachel died THREE years ago when Beth was still in middle school and Rachel
acted so very adult. Suddenly, more than 25% into the novel, the age-gap shrunk
to only 2 years, but that contradicted everything shown prior to that, since
ages weren't given for driving-age high school juniors three years ago when
Rachel died.
How are both grown men, who were 16/17 year-old high schoolers THREE+ years
ago, who would have attended their senior year years ago, suddenly sharing the
same grade with Beth?
A gap-year is for college kids, not high school kids who attended juvie for
three years. Abroad or not, Jeff would have never taken three years off of
school and then did a do-over as a grown man attending class alongside minors.
No matter how far I fell into the story, into the angst, into the yummy drama
deliciousness, I couldn't let that go. It was the foundation of the story.
Beth, Chase, and the rest of the cast were in Advanced Calculus, but the math
never added up.
I loved every second of the novel but the major discrepancies, and I highly
recommend to those who love angsty young adult, provided these issues aren't
hard limits for their reading enjoyment.
