Until Friday Night - Review

Until Friday Night (The Field Party, # 1)

By: Abbi Glines

Published: August 25th 2015 by Simon Pulse

352 pages

Genre: New Adult, Contemporary, Sports

Source: Borrowed from Holly

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Goodreads description--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…

I’ve read a lot of Abbi Glines. I wouldn’t say her writing is always my favorite. There are some aspects that tend to repeat in most of her books that I actually rather dislike. On average, I’ve rated her books around 3-3.5 Stars. But so far I’ve only read new adult books by her and most of these books have conflict that makes me roll my eyes at some point. But one thing is always for certain with Abbi Glines…she sucks me in and I usually read her books in a day. After seeing my sister-in-law say that Until Friday Night is actually kind of sad, I knew I wanted to read it soon. Plus…bonus, this book/series is young adult. YAY!! While there is still several f-bombs, the physical description is cut way back from her new adult books. And so, I started Until Friday Night not really knowing remembering much else about it.

West is the typical Abbi Glines leading male. He’s currently in a relationship, but he’s not invested emotionally at all. He’s basically in it for the physical perks and that’s it. West does the whole bit of pushing Maggie away in the very beginning because he’s not someone she needs to be hanging around. He’s too messed up in the head. Only to become a caveman and act super possessive when any other male is slightly interested in her. And this is BEFORE the two even have any sort of in depth conversation. I can see this being a real annoyance for some readers. For me, it was par for the course of an Abbi Glines book and not something that bothered me too much. Once he overcomes this stupid phase, he’s actually a fairly likeable guy.

On a realistic level, wow can I relate to what West had to go through with his dad. Having recently lost my father-in-law (although not to cancer and not really slowly), these parts of Until Friday Night really had me tearing up. I would have been all out bawling if I didn’t want to explain to my husband what I was reading. Along with the dedication, I really felt like Abbi Glines was drawing from some (perhaps recent) personal experience when she wrote these sections. The emotions were heartfelt and raw and real. And the events were very similar to our experience with my father-in-law. Pretty emotional…so beware.

Maggie is also similar to a typical leading female for Abbi Glines. She feels some kind of attraction or sees something in the leading male even when he’s being a total jerk. And so she continues to endure when most non-fictional girls would be running for the hills. As the description says, Maggie witness her father murder her mother. I wish this had been explored a bit deeper. I don’t know if the next book in the series will carry on with West and Maggie or move on to other characters. I’m assuming the later, but if we were sticking with West and Maggie, I’d really like to see more time spent exploring this aspect.

Maggie choosing not to speak to anyone except West really reminded me of The Sea of Tranquility. And of course, sharing something as vulnerable with someone else as Maggie shares with West has to bond two people. And the two really begin to develop a co-dependent relationship. Which leads into that eye rolling conflict I was talking about earlier. Fortunately, things didn’t remain in this state for too long and we were able to move forward without too much to complain about.

I feel like my review of Until Friday Night has come off more negative than I really felt. I did have a few annoyances that I felt like needed to be pointed out, but between the emotion I felt around West’s situation as well as how fast I read this book, I ended up really enjoying it. Plus the fact that this was a young adult book and not a new adult book means the physical content wasn’t as graphic which I also appreciate. Until Friday Night gets 4 Stars, and I’m excited to see what the next book in the series offers. Have you read Until Friday Night? What did you think? Let me know!