WE’RE NEVER GETTING HOME By Tracy Badua

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

WE’RE NEVER GETTING HOME By Tracy BaduaWe're Never Getting Home by Tracy Badua
Published by Quill Tree Books on 4/16/24
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Pages: 316
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
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Jana Rubio and her best friend, Maddy Parsons, have an epic senior year finale queued up: catching their favorite band at the Orchards, an outdoor music festival a two-hour drive away. When a blowup over Maddy’s time-sucking boyfriend exposes a rift that may have already been growing between them, Jana calls off their joint trip and gets a lift to the festival from her church friend Nathan…only to realize Maddy and her boyfriend are along for the ride, too.

All Jana wants is to enjoy the concert and get home as soon as possible. But then Nathan loses his car keys crowd-surfing, and it’s up to Jana and Maddy to find them. As they navigate stolen phones and missing friends, scale Ferris wheels and crash parties, the two of them are forced to reckon with the biggest obstacle of all: repairing their friendship.

Will Jana and Maddy find their way home—and also back to each other?

Short and Sweet Review

Jana and her best friend Maddy are about to see their favorite band at an outdoor music festival two hours away. After the two have a fight Jana has to find another ride to the show, and she ends up asking Nathan a friend from church. Funny enough Maddy and her boyfriend Tyler are also carpooling with Nathan. At this point Jana just wants to go to the concert and go home right after, but after Nathan loses the car keys it’s chaos. Jana and Maddy have to resolve their issues and also look for the keys so that Jana can get home.

Jana and Maddy have been friends since elementary school and just recently Maddy started dating Tyler and Jana feels left out which is the reason for their fight. I get where both girls are coming from and I don’t blame Maddy for the fight in her mind she was trying to include Jana but whenever he was brought up Jana would make excuses to not hangout. I will say that things that Jana perceived weren’t true but she wanted them to be and she came across as a victim. Anyway Nathan his younger brother Everett along with Maddy, Tyler, and Jana head to the festival. It doesn’t take long for Nathan to lose the keys after crowd surfing and that’s when things start to go downhill for Jana. After the festival Jana promised to pick up her dad at a work conference and she feels like she’s letting her parents down so she’s stressed and also determined to find those keys. I think the pressure that Jana feels to make her parents happy shapes her to be the person she is. I found Jana to be someone who wanted to be perfect and was afraid to step one foot out of line but also it was hard for her because she had a friend like Maddy who was able to be a little more carefree. Over the course of the book we see the group try to find the keys and also a whole bunch of shenanigans like Nathan hurting his knee, Jana’s phone being stolen and crashing parties, but the biggest thing is resolving her friendship with Maddy. I feel like Jana did go through some character development but I thought she could have grown some more. The ending wasn’t my favorite mainly because somethings happened so late in the book it felt like the resolution was just solved way too fast.

Overall, I liked the premise of this book and the festival was a fun setting. I do like that Jana ended up learning a lot about herself during the course of the book. I will say that I enjoyed Maddy a lot and I think Jana should have spent more time trying to see things from her perspective. It was a good book and a lot of important lessons were learned.

THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL STATEMENT By Tracy Badua

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL STATEMENT By Tracy BaduaThis Is Not a Personal Statement by Tracy Badua
Published by Quill Tree Books on 1/17/23
Genres: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 347
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon

At sixteen, Perla is the youngest graduating senior of the hypercompetitive Monte Verde High. Praised—and not-so-quietly bashed—as “Perfect Perlie Perez,” Perla knows all the late nights, social isolation, and crushing stress will be worth it when she gets into the college of her (and her parents’) dreams: Delmont University.

Then Perla doesn’t get in, and her meticulously planned future shatters. In a panic, she forges her own acceptance letter, and next thing she knows, she’s heading to Delmont for real, acceptance or not. Soon, Perla is breaking into dorm rooms, crashing classes, and dodging questions from new friends about her lack of a student ID. Her plan? Gather on-the-ground intel to beef up her application and reapply spring semester before she’s caught.

But as her guilty conscience grows and campus security looms large, Perla starts to wonder if her plan will really succeed—and if this dream she’s worked for her entire life is something she even wants.

Short and Sweet Review

Perla Perez is the youngest student in her graduating class and all her life she’s worked to get accepted into Delmont University. So when Perla gets a rejection letter she panics and creates a fake acceptance letter and shows it to her parents. Perla plans to pretend to be a student and try to improve her next application and become a student in the spring.

This book was addicting and nerve wracking. Perla really went through almost every scenario when she came up with the idea of pretending to be a college student. She attends lectures, finds an empty dorm room, and makes some friends. What Perla wasn’t expecting was to have money problems and see someone from high school who may be on to her. Perla’s parents and family have high expectations for her and I felt bad because this is one of the main reasons she’s in this predicament. Perla is used to being on top so when she’s here in college she realizes that she may have been a lot more sheltered back at home than she thought. Perla has a lot of character development and that was one of my favorite things about this book, Perla just learning that this is her life and she has her own dreams and she doesn’t have to try to live out someone else’s. We see Perla make it 3 months on campus which is pretty insane because she did a lot of sneaking around, and it was always how long can she go before she gets caught or will she be successful and actually get accepted in the spring?

This was an amazing book, it will have you on the edge of your seat following Perla around campus. The biggest thing was the message that you get to pick the overall course of your life and you should follow your dreams and not anyone else’s. This is a must get book, I may have struggled in my college journey but Perla took fake it til you make it to another level and I will never forget her story!