99 Days audiobook

The storyline and the major characters are all shades of effed up. Seriously. I wanted to slap Molly’s mom in the face a hundred times, Molly a hundred and fifty. I was yelling every creative curse I can at her for all the times she succumbed to her weaknesses, selfishness and indecisiveness. I wanted to kick Patrick’s head for being a jerk and for experimenting on power tripping. I wanted to smash his and Gabe’s heads together for their egotistical contests at the expense of a girl’s feelings although I’ll probably cure Gabe’s because he’s too sweet.But I must confess that I just could not stop reading. Ms. Katie Cotugno’s writing has that pull on me. I remember feeling pretty much the same on her debut novel, How to Love. Like no matter how flawed her characters are, they find a way of creeping up to that soft part of my heart that wants to empathize and understand and in the end it did. It takes more than one person to break a relationship and all these double standard on women are just too exhausting. I’m glad the author touched this issue. Girls are usually blamed as the seductress who deserve to be the social pariah but in the story, Molly never forced herself on the Donnelly brothers. Yes, she was hurt, young, weak and reckless and I’m not justifying her actions but she grew up with both brothers and all I’m saying is that it’s not so hard to understand she’d develop feelings for both and both the brothers for her. Why does she have to take all the blame? Molly does realize she’s being a bitch and she paid dearly for it. It probably took her long to come to her senses but that’s the reality of life. People don’t come clean in a matter of just a few days, not even 99 days and this is why I’m cutting her some slack because everybody deserves a second chance, even a third and I’m glad Molly gets hers.I believe the author is simply trying to put across the idea that just because people commit supposedly unacceptable things, they’re already bad people. These characters were simply messed up by their situations and their experiences and the author was able to realistically portray it. This is definitely one of those books that reminded me I don’t have to fall in love with the story to appreciate it. Hats off to Ms. Cotugno for the great risk she took in writing this novel. It certainly paid off.

Re-read 5/11/18: 2015 Chelsea definitely had way stronger feelings about this one than 2018 Chelsea, lol. I still enjoyed this one a whole lot, it’s definitely one of the more realistic YA contemporaries that I’ve read. HOWEVER. This time I picked up on some weirdness re: fatness and it really turned me off. It was one of those “you’re not fat, you’re beautiful” moments that imply fat people aren’t beautiful and it made me headdesk real hard 🙄 buuuuut other than that I did really like the story at its core and I very much enjoyed my re-read. Original read 9/17/15: Wow, okay. So I ended up really enjoying this. It deals a lot with cheating and families and I know that a lot of people didn't like this book BECAUSE of that, but I feel like it was pretty well handled. I mean, obviously cheating sucks and there's pretty much no way around that, but I feel like this book is a great demonstration of WHY it sucks so much to cheat on someone who loves you and all the people it affects. Idk. I really enjoyed this. I definitely think it's better than Katie Cotugno's other book and that it's worth checking out.

I finished 99 days last night and I woke up this morning still thinking about it. I’m not going to lie, it’s a tough read, and I feel like people are either really going to love this or really going to hate this. Cheating is always a hard topic to really get into. But here’s the thing… while the cheating may be the catalyst to a lot of what happens in this story, it’s not really what it is about once you get to that final page.Molly Barlow lives in the small town of Star Lake… she’s grown up with the Donnelly family, but one year ago she abruptly left to get away from the dirty looks, the people she used to call friends, and the gossip. Her mom did the unthinkable and took a secret she shared with her and turned it into a best-selling novel… The thing is, everyone was able to tell that story wasn’t all fiction… they knew it was about her.I’m going to try to do this without spoiling anything so consider this your fair warning. From the very beginning I found myself connecting with Molly… Not in the way that I could understand what she did, instead I could sympathize for her situation. I understood her feelings of betrayal, her sadness over the loss of her friends and ‘family’ and her heartbreak over losing the guy her life revolved around. I think what Katie Cotugno does amazingly well is create real, flawed and layered characters…. She did it in How To Love, and she does it again here. Each one is crafted with such care and while you may not like the person she’s created, their actions and reactions feel completely real to me. I’ll say it right now, Molly makes some really stupid choices in this story… but they aren’t off base. She’s only 18, she’s just finding her way in life, trying to figure out who she wants to be and what she wants to do and those stupid choices… they make sense. Believe me… I remember making ones just as stupid, and I don’t have the excuse of being young under my belt! The relationships between the characters in this story were also really well done. When Molly left Star Lake, she also ditched out on her best friend… a friend who she didn’t contact for a full year, and when she returned she expected to just jump right back into that role with Imogen but things have changed and I wanted to dislike Imogen for how she was treating Molly, but I couldn’t and when Imogen finally tells her what it was like for her when she disappeared, I got it. What I really loved though, was that these two were able to move past it and rebuild that friendship and despite the things that Molly does wrong she’s able to accept her and advise her and be there for her when things crumble down. Because they absolutely do crumble down. Molly is in no way a saint or innocent in all of this, and yet Cotugno really builds on how people as a society tend to automatically think… blame the girl. That was horribly frustrating to read because it’s sad that that’s what it comes down to. Gabe took barely any backlash from friends and family for what happened between him and Molly and yet she’s the one who gets tormented and teased and harassed. It’s a sad, yet accurate portrayal of typical reactions when this happens. And the relationship between these boys. Patrick and Gabe seem to not have any love lost between them which is sad since they are brothers. But it was hard for me to tell if their issues stemmed from their feelings for Molly or if there was a larger issue at play here. Either way, it was really heartbreaking. As far as the romance-y stuff. I have to say that I was really cheering for Gabe and Molly from the very beginning and that only got stronger as I continued to read. I have my reasons for this, and I know when you read you’ll see why. Gabe is super sweet and just wonderful with Molly (even though I don’t totally agree with something he admits to in the end) and even though there are all these reasons why they shouldn’t be together he isn’t shy about what he wants, but he never truly pressures her or pushes her into any decisions. This book will go on my favorites shelf, right next to my copies of How To Love, once it’s released. Katie Cotugno is quickly becoming one of my go-to authors for smart, complicated, stories that will challenge your feelings about tough topics and make you look at the whole picture dispite any preconceived feelings you might have about it.Thank you to Balzer & Bray and Edelweiss for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest thoughts!

An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts are my own.This review can also be found at The Starry-Eyed Revue.I'm just going to get to the point straightaway: there probably won't be many in-betweeners on this one. 99 Days is a book that you're likely to either love or loathe, depending on your stance on cheating and love triangles and how open-minded you are to either concept. I don't particularly enjoy reading about these things, but I'm not opposed to reading for great writing, despite what happens in the story. And I really, really liked How to Love , so I knew I had to give this book a chance.I'm really glad I didn't let ideas that make me uncomfortable keep me from picking up this story. 99 Days was genuine, gritty, and realistic. It was complicated. It was messy. But there's so much more to the story than just cheating. It also explores society's tendency to automatically assume the girl is at fault when something like this happens, to start with the insults and end with harassment while the guy sees no punishment for his actions. This book also features a unique mother-daughter relationship that was painful to read about and probably much worse to endure in real life.Every single character in this book is just so flawed. I don't think you're necessarily supposed to like them, but I actually found that I did, even if I didn't always (read: ever) agree with their choices and actions. But I get it. At eighteen, you don't always make the best decisions. I know I didn't. I always feel the need to divulge too much when a story likes this comes along, but I'm going to refrain from that now. Instead, I just think it crucial to point out that many of us have made mistakes of this proportion, even if they weren't necessary of this caliber. Also, everyone deserves a second chance.The relationships in this book are just as complicated as the characters in them. From the flawed mother-daughter relationship I mentioned earlier to the brother triangle the main character finds herself in, these characters have issues. I appreciated that self-deprecating Molly was able to acknowledge in the end that it wasn't just her own actions that resulted in her current circumstances but a culmination of hers and those that loved her. She started this book out so miserable and alone, and even though the ending was rather bittersweet -- but entirely of her own making -- I still smiled at the fact that Molly was getting her second chance.99 Days was a hard book to read but also a very difficult story to put down. There's just something so addicting in reading about someone else's misery, especially when it's so relatable. It's hard to look away from something like that, and this story is no different. It's not even 2015 yet, and this book has already made my favorites list for the year.GIF it to me straight:

99 Days is a book about facing your mistakes, and learning to start over. When Molly’s mom turns her biggest mistake into a best-selling novel, Molly’s first instinct is to run. After being away at boarding school for the past year, it’s time for her to return to her small town for the summer, to face the past she left behind, and the biggest mistake she ever made. It’s not often that I read a book where I felt both sympathy and insane frustration for a main character. That’s exactly how I felt about Molly while I was reading this book. There were SO many decisions that she made throughout the story that made me shake my head, or really, made me want to shake some sense into her. But then, in a way, I kind of get why she did the things that she did. Not that I agree with them at all, but I get it. Otherwise, I love how strong her character seemed to be. While all that was going on around her, when everyone blamed only her for what happened, she stayed headstrong, and didn’t let anyone bring her down. I always find that admirable.All of the characters in the book are very well written. No one is perfect in this story; a few of them are super far from it, but they are all interesting nonetheless. I think Gabe was my favorite character in the whole book, and even he had many flaws. There are also characters in the book that you are REALLY going to hate, or at least I did. I didn’t appreciate at all how some of the girls treated Molly. Yes, she made a few bad choices in the book, but I don’t see how that was any of their business at all, and it made me SO angry how they treated her.I’m not a huge fan of drama, but in this book, it was addictive! And it wasn’t just the drama, this whole book was addictive. Even while was reading it and thing how completely wrong so many things were as I turned the pages, I still couldn’t stop reading the book. It was this really weird type of intense, one that was, at times, uncomfortable. And I just HAD to know how it was all going to end. Also, I really enjoyed the writing style for the book, and that each chapter was written for the specific day in Molly’s life. I really enjoyed the ending of the book as well.Overall; while this book made me super uncomfortable in parts, I still really enjoyed reading it. I liked that the book was different than what I expected, that the characters and decisions made were so imperfect, and that the storyline was so realistic. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more from Katie Cotugno soon.Happy Reading!!

I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT...why is there no more book? I think my book is missing pages or something. I stayed up until 2 am for this really anticlimactic ending, my stomach rumbling from hunger with no red vines or twizzlers in sight. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the cuteness of it all. I rated it a 4 because Molly pissed me off a lot haha and I'm still not sure how I feel about the way it ended. The characters were 2 and a half dimensional (so not quite 3D but almost) and I felt connected at some parts while during others I was lost or just royally pissed. The way the characters seem to turn on each other without explanation just showed how fragile their relationships were. I loved how that played out. I don't want to spoil anything but yeah if I could write a character sketch of these characters I would have the time of my life. Overall it was a good contemporary that I didn't want to put down at all over the past few days and apparently until early hours in the morning. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes drama haha. A more in depth review coming up on littleyellowbookshop.com soon.

Visit Stay Bookish for more book reviews!Katie Cotugno’s debut novel, How To Love, was one of my favorite novels in 2013 and I was so psyched to hear about her new book. She excels in writing very complicated stories that I enjoy and I can definitely say her sophomore novel is just as messy but captivating.“I don’t know how I became this person, one of those girls with a lot of drama around her. A person whose romantic garbage literally fills an entire book.”I couldn’t stop myself from devouring 99 Days. It was such a frustrating read in a really good way. Molly Barlow is facing the harsh consequences of cheating on her boyfriend Patrick with his brother Gabe. In the 99 days she waits until she can go off to college, surely she can survive the nastiness and the slut-shaming. She at least has one person on her corner, albeit the guy she cheated with, who is particularly very charming. But it’s a long summer and Molly is still prone to mistakes- as much as anyone else.“We’ve finally destroyed each other, finally eaten each other alive. We’re never coming back from this.”Can you love a book that made you angry? Apparently yes, at least for me. I hated the shit Molly had to put up with. I hated that she had to put up with it. I hated that she did what she did and the things she does further along the story. But I loved how Molly was such a realistic protagonist. Loved how genuinely convoluted her relationships were. Loved how much I just understood because the narrative allowed me to. Loved that there were lessons to be learned and things to be realized, not only for Molly but for the reader.“I think of how he knows my ugly parts and likes me anyway, how he’s not perpetually disappointed by the person I turned out to be.”The book tackled these unlikeable topics (cheating, bullying and double standards) and characters and yet I still appreciated how I was really there just feeling everything that Molly was going through. Though I’ve never been through what she had, never done the things she did, there was still a connection between her and me as the reader. To put simply, I sympathized with the main character, no matter how many stupid choices she made. There was room for much growth and I was glad to that Molly’s character did develop really well in the end. All this, I think, is a testament how strong and authentic Katie Cotugno’s writing is. I’m in awe once again.“A lot of times it feels like I’m the only one still lost.”99 Days is a novel to be read with an open mind. It’s a challenging read with absolutely flawed characters in really uncomfortable situations. Still, I think 99 Days is worth reading if you like conflicting stories about imperfect people. It won’t be for everybody but if there’s a shot that you could get into this, I say read it.

Full Review on The Candid Cover99 Days is probably the most dramatic book I’ve read this year. While I did enjoy reading this book, the main character seems to not sit well with me. It is a gorgeously designed novel that has a very unique concept, however, the main character seems a bit artificial with her melodramatic tendencies.The layout of 99 Days is so incredible. Starting with its beautiful end papers, this book has a beautiful feel to it. The chapter sequencing is also very appealing to this story. Each day that Molly is in town has its own chapter. It begins with Day One and quickly progresses throughout Molly’s entire summer. A fast paced read set in summertime essentially makes this book a fun summer read almost akin to reading a journal.The plot for 99 Days is really interesting.The main character’s (Molly) mom writes a bestselling book about her love life, which pretty much the whole town has read. After changing schools, Molly returns to her hometown and must deal with all the harassment that her mother caused. She has 99 days left until she can leave for university, hence the name 99 Days.Although I quite enjoyed this book and its storyline, I struggled with the main character, Molly. She makes so many horrible decisions that are frustrating to read. Molly is a drama queen and runs havoc on the other characters’ lives in 99 Days. It is understandable that she is acting out due to her current circumstances, but there was too much melodrama for my taste. I suppose these flaws make her a relatable character for some, but I found it a little bit over the top.Definitely a book that is a sure fire read for the beach. It contains a unique plot and certainly does not lack in the drama department. This fast-paced book is one to pick up if you are heavily into the contemporary genre.

Dei por mim a não conseguir para de ler até chegar ao fim. Um romance de adolescentes com descobertas, segredos, indecisões. Um romance bem leve que se lê num instante.

Here's my disclaimer: This book, as I am sure many of you have heard, is a bit... shall we say, polarizing. There are topics that may make people uncomfortable, like cheating, love triangles, lies and betrayal. But here is another thing this book is: honest, and quite frankly, realistic.I don't think I need to announce it, but I will: Molly is flawed. Flawed as hell. But I liked her, somehow. I think it was because she was very aware of her flaws. She wasn't making excuses, or blaming someone else, she acknowledged her mistakes, and wanted to move past them. And I couldn't help but feel sympathetic as the whole town basically pinned a scarlet "A" on her, all while there are zero social ramifications for Gabe.Let's talk about these boys for a moment. Gabe is the older brother of Patrick, Molly's ex-boyfriend. And he's an ex because, well, while they were briefly separated, she was with his brother. And then didn't tell him when they got back together. So I mean, it wasn't great, but it kind of wasn't the worst thing that anyone's ever done either. Gabe is pretty great, in my opinion. He's charismatic, funny, and really doesn't give a damn about what these people think of him or Molly. He knows how wrong the double standard is, how unfair it is for Molly to take flack but not him. He's a solid guy, and I was so happy when he and Molly started talking again. Then there's Patrick, who I basically could not stand. He seemed very selfish, and entitled, and I couldn't really find his redeeming qualities. I guess for Molly, he was her first love, and they'd been friends forever and all that jazz, but for me? Meh. I wasn't a fan of Patrick.After everyone found out about Molly and Gabe, and the taunting began, Molly hightailed it to a boarding school in Arizona. So when the book starts, Molly is just coming back to New York after a year away from all these people and their nonsense. You'd think they'd have gotten lives over the past nine months, but no, because half the town is still insistent upon making Molly's life hell. But there are some really decent people in town, people who aren't going to judge Molly based on one indiscretion that is none of their business. Those people are basically awesome. I don't even want to tell you who they are, because it might ruin the fun of finding out.Of course, that isn't the end of the story, not by a long shot. Molly hasn't quite learned from her mistakes as much as one would hope, and she starts going down a very slippery slope that could kind of ruin all the progress (and new relationships) she's made.The thing about this story that I loved so much is that yeah, Molly does some really dumb stuff. Even she knows how dumb it is. But she's young, and she is conflicted, and you know, it just made so much sense. I don't condone Molly's actions, but this book was written in such a way that I understood them. I think we all have the ability to mess up, and to do something we later regret, Molly just happened to fall into the opportunity to act on it. And she did the wrong thing, absolutely, but she is human, and we make mistakes. It's what we do about it that eventually defines the kind of person we are. Do we learn from them and try to make better choices? That's all you can really ask of someone, at the end of the day.The other thing that I really enjoyed about this book was just the sheer readability of it. I couldn't put it down! I don't know what it was about the writing, but I absolutely flew through this book. The characters were all very fleshed out, even some of the more minor ones, and some of them I loved, and some I loved to hate, but I wanted to know their stories all the same. This isn't really a spoiler, but I wanted to say something about the ending, but I hate when people say too much about the ending so I'll use a spoiler tag, just in case:  (view spoiler)[While we may not all like the outcome, it really is appropriate. I don't think any other ending would have done the story justice. (hide spoiler)] Bottom Line: I liked this book quite a lot. Yeah, there were moments that I was super frustrated, and wanted to kind of smack some people (it wasn't just Molly, trust me!), I enjoyed the story immensely, and feel like I really got some good messages out of reading it.This review was originally posted on It Starts at Midnight

Honestly I'm pretty surprised by my own high rating. When I was first getting into this book I was pretty put off by the horrible decisions the characters in this book continued to make...and that feeling kept growing the more that I read. A lot of the time while reading this I felt like I was watching a trashy reality TV show that just annoyed me. However, as you can probably tell by my rating, I wasn't hating it completely. I truly thought it was well-written, and it kept me interested in finding out what would happen despite my annoyance with the characters. Also, I really really liked that this book brought the issue of double standards relating to gender to light. This book is about cheating, yes, but it's also about how the girl in the cheating relationship is usually the one to be called a slut & treated horribly, while the guy is never to blame. I really like how this book shows how wrong and messed up that is. The ending actually made me emotional, which was a total surprise. I was so happy that the main character seemed to grow as a person and actually (FINALLY) learn from her mistakes. I knew an ending like that would be the only kind of ending that could save this story for me.Overall, it was a fast-paced and addicting read. I still have some issues with it...like a lot of the characters in this book just really suck as humans...but it didn't ultimately ruin the book for me. I ended up enjoying it, and for me the ending was definitely the best part. I think everyone just has to determine based on what I've said if this book is for them, because it certainly won't be for everyone.

Molly is one of the many reasons I loved this novel. She is a lot like myself when I was younger and sometimes like me now. Molly was able to show me that you can stand up and be strong even in the toughest of situations. Molly is strong willed and though sometimes she needs Netflix to get her though it she always does. Longer review to come soon!

3.5 starsSurprisingly complex for a YA romance! And what I loved most was probably what the haters couldn’t stand about it. Ok, before you come for me I’m not advocating cheating. But I’d like to challenge the teenage and 20-something readers who trashed this book to read it again when you’re 30+ and then see how you feel. Real life is a shit-show. Relationships are messy. People are not perfect. The heat of the moment is a real thing. What you should do and what you want to do are not always the same thing. Good people make mistakes and do shitty things sometimes. People are flawed. Teenage brains are a shitstorm of hormones and aren’t fully developed until the age of 25. It’s a scientific fact you can Google. How are you supposed to learn if you never make mistakes? Molly didn’t make good choices. Molly also suffered some pretty severe trauma by having her mother use the biggest mistake of her young life as the subject of her latest novel AND confessing to an international gossip magazine that her story was inspired by her daughter’s real life live triangle. What the actual FUCK mom? That relationship was honestly the one that felt the least authentic to me. So yeah, I liked that it wasn’t a neat little story of good vs. bad. I liked that it showed good people making bad choices. But I didn’t like the fat-shaming and the mean girls stuff. Overall, a pretty good read.

99 Days I don't really know how to feel about this one. There were parts I liked and some of them I hated. The only thing I'm sure of right now is the fact that Katie Cotugno's writing style is incredible. I like how she made me feel exactly what Molly was feeling, that I could understand her character. However the story itself annoyed me, A LOT! I got tired of the whole love triangle way too early to enjoy this book. I have never eye rolled so much in my entire life. I still like Katie Cotugno writing style so I will defnitely read more of her.