Word Revel

I remember reading "Two-Way Street" and liking it, so I inadvertently went into reading "One Night That Changes Everything" with more expectations than I have when randomly picking up books. It's a light read, perfect for unwinding. I liked that it was set in one night and with that, basically written in real time.

The plot wasn't trying too hard and hit pretty close to home, I think, in that this could have happened to anyone. Eliza got hurt due to the initiation of Cooper into a high school fraternity. She found out that he had been dating her in order to gain points, so that he could be part of the club. She in turn dumped him, as any sensible girl would do. The hook of this novel is that the guys had gotten hold of her notebook in which she had penned down her fears and were blackmailing her into facing her fears. I thought this premise was a promising on and while nothing of this sort has happened to me, I could relate.

What disappointed me though was Eliza's voice. Surely self-pitying would be part and parcel of one's response to such a plight. But it felt forced at some points and fairly repetitive. There is this point where she says there was only one way to respond, and that was to cry. While this may annoy some readers who expect strong protagonists, I thought this stayed true to the vulnerability she felt, knowing that that others now knew what she was scared of. I did think however that it was unnecessary to play upon that so much.

Also, there was this talk about about some secrets not being her own. Yet, even though these "secrets" were about her two best friends and her sister, they still were ultimately about Eliza and what Eliza had done or what her opinions were. She didn't approve the way either of her friends dealt with boys, and while she kept her opinion about Clarice from Clarice, she didn't hide her disproval of Jeremy from Marissa. Given the whole obsession about having to keep others' secrets too then, I was disappointed and left wanting for more, and not in a good way.

Given that Lauren Barnholdt chose to write from Eliza's perspective when Eliza's voice fell through for me, I could only give 3 stars even though I read the book in one sitting, not wanting to put it down.