[Review] Top Ten - Katie Cotugno

Summary: Ryan McCullough and Gabby Hart are the unlikeliest of friends. Introverted, anxious Gabby would rather do literally anything than go to a party. Ryan is a star hockey player who can get any girl he wants—and does, frequently. But against all odds, they became not only friends but each other’s favorite person. Now, as they face high school graduation, they can’t help but take a moment to reminisce and, in their signature tradition, make a top ten list—counting down the top ten moments of their friendship:

10. Where to begin? Maybe the night we met.

9. Then there was our awkward phase.

8. When you were in love with me but never told me…

7. Those five months we stopped talking were the hardest of my life.

6. Through terrible fights…

5. And emotional makeups.

4. You were there for me when I got my heart broken.

3. …but at times, you were also the one breaking it.

2. Above all, you helped me make sense of the world.

1. Now, as we head off to college—how am I possibly going to live without you? (Pub Date: Oct 3, 2017)

This started okay, then it wasn't, but it eventually recovered. So I'm rating this 2,5 stars, rounding up 3 because it was well written and I understood the (good) message intended. Still, it got close to a 2. In other words, it gets better, just not that much.

This book is about Gabby and Ryan's friendship as told in a non linear manner, listing the top-ten moments through four years from when they met in freshmen year until the present, after they sleep together (this is not a spoiler, it's the first thing the book shows).

While I liked the idea of a non-linear story, I didn't enjoy the execution, as I couldn't see the reason behind the order chosen. In the end, it only confused me with each time skip. I think the author intended to build mysteries but failed in teasing us about them. The story would close a chapter with them not so good with each other, then open next they weren't speaking for months. That gap didn't really feel like a big "what happened", so I simply filled it with imagination instead of waiting. When the next chapter went back to why they had stopped talking, proving my imagination wrong, first I didn't care why because I had a good theory; second, this why wasn't any plot twist worthy of waiting.  

Still, the major problem was just of pacing. I think the whole first half of the book was just too ordinary. Too many cliches together, telling another YA story about the popular guy falling for the weird wallflower. To make things worse, we already knew it all from the first chapter, as it happens in the future. We knew where they were going and we could imagine where they came from, then the book takes just dragged, showing that all. I confess I considered dropping this read but insisted because this was well written and quick to read.

Ryan was the big perk in the book. He is very cute and charismatic, a great book boyfriend. Gabby was a little all over the place, she'd be brave sometimes and do what she had to and then she'd have panic attacks. I'm not saying it's hard to believe she exists, because I think she was quite real. But I had problems understanding her. Also, she's bissexual. Sorry, I had to just throw that information there because that's how I felt. The fact was thrown in there and never made any difference to the story, it just made Gabby even more confusing to me. I love LGBT reads, I think diversity adds a lot to a book, but in this case it felt a bit like queerbaiting. That said, I loved her other romantic interest, Shay. She was a fun character that made me smile whenever she showed up and how it didn't feel like a boring triangle.

Gabby's struggle against anxiety got a good conclusion but it could have received better treatment along the story. Sometimes, it was like the author just repeated the information without progressing—even if this plot did have progression, it dissolved and disappeared. Still, I'd say this and Ryan's need to please his jerk of a father were the highlights. Great themes to be discussed in a group, like book clubs.

As easy to read as I've said this was, it's also very easy to just give up. The real issues disappears in the middle of too-much-of-the-same in the first half and we just really feel involved much later; even then, it wasn't as much to say this was worth it.

It's not a bad book, it's just not rewarding enough. I remember that upon reading the summary I hoped for cute, and it's not really. I'd say slower readers could have a problem. If you've already started, know that it's more than it seems but only a little more.


Honest review based on an ARC provided by Edelweiss. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.

Rating: 3 out of 5.