Until Friday Night by Abbi Glines
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction
Blurb (on back of book):
To everyone who knows him, West Ashby has always been that guy: the cocky, popular, way-too-handsome-for-his-own-good football god who led Lawton High to the state championships. But while West may be Big Man on Campus on the outside, on the inside he’s battling the grief that comes with watching his father slowly die of cancer. Two years ago, Maggie Carleton’s life fell apart when her father murdered her mother. And after she told the police what happened, she stopped speaking and hasn’t spoken since. Even the move to Lawton, Alabama, couldn’t draw Maggie back out. So she stayed quiet, keeping her sorrow and her fractured heart hidden away.
As West’s pain becomes too much to handle, he knows he needs to talk to someone about his father—so in the dark shadows of a post-game party, he opens up to the one girl who he knows won’t tell anyone else.
West expected that talking about his dad would bring some relief, or at least a flood of emotions he couldn’t control. But he never expected the quiet new girl to reply, to reveal a pain even deeper than his own—or for them to form a connection so strong that he couldn’t ever let her go…
MY OPINION: ***
I don't quite know what to think about this book. I heard a lot of great things about it on TikTok but then read reviews on Goodreads and saw less than stellar reactions to it. However, it seemed like a book I would like so I decided to give it a try. Now that I've finished it, I honestly don't know how I feel about it.
The book felt both rushed and slow-paced at the same time. The two main characters, West and Maggie, form a close relationship early on in the book, despite a rocky start. I honestly didn't ship them throughout the majority of the novel but I don't know if that was just me. I didn't see any chemistry between them and instead noticed that they just grew attached to each other through shared pain. Was it love? I'm not sure.
West was not my favorite male protagonist of all time. His father was dying from cancer for the majority of the book, making him act out and lash out against the world. He's also the star football player that every girl wants to get with which was both stereotypical and annoying. He very obviously is going through something but hides it behind his reputable persona. I hated his entire personality. He used girls for sex to try to "cope" but it was really just disgusting and yet another thing I hate about men. He treats Maggie like trash to "try to get her to stay away from him." This is honestly a common trope and shouldn't be as normalized as it is because it's really Maggie's choice as to whether or not she wants to get to know West.
Of course, Maggie is the only girl who can see through his facade despite the fact that she's known the boy for about one night. I don't know how these protagonists can somehow read someone else's eyes all the time because let me tell you, that just doesn't happen in real life. I didn't like Maggie's character either but I did feel bad for everything she's been through. I can't imagine the trauma I would have felt if I saw a parent kill my other parent.
Maggie copes with her trauma by "going mute" and not talking to anyone. Of course, as soon as she meets West this all changes and she suddenly starts talking because she realizes that he needs help. The both get extremely attached to each other in the span of a few pages and I didn't really like how it all happened so fast. It was quite unhealthy how attached they were, and I liked that Maggie recognized that and made them slow down a bit and take a step back from each other before they suffocated.
Brady, Maggie's cousin, was okay. He was really protective of Maggie without being too overbearing. I liked how he recognized that his friends weren't the best examples of the male population and told them to stay away from Maggie. There were a few nasty comments that he made that made me disgusted before remembering the book was set in Alabama and apparently it's a bit "normalized," not that every single person in the South participates in that.
Overall, this book wasn't my favorite. I don't think I'll be continuing on with the series, due to the enormous amount of other books on my TBR before the end of the year as well as school and lack of interest. I would recommend this book to readers looking for a more serious romantic drama.
Main Character: West, Maggie
Sidekick(s): Brady, aunt, etc
Villain(s): Trauma, cancer, murder, etc
Realistic Fiction Elements: This book was all very real to life.
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