review: the season

I received The Season by Jonah Lisa Dyer(and Stephen Dyer?) as an ARC and finished reading it in 8 hours! I really enjoyed it and im rating it 4.5 out of 5 stars!:D

Synopsis from Goodreads:

She can score a goal, do sixty box jumps in a row, bench press a hundred and fifty pounds…but can she learn to curtsey?

Megan McKnight is a soccer star with Olympic dreams, but she’s not a girly girl. So when her Southern belle mother secretly enters her in the 2016 Dallas debutante season, she’s furious—and has no idea what she’s in for. When Megan’s attitude gets her on probation with the mother hen of the debs, she’s got a month to prove she can ballroom dance, display impeccable manners, and curtsey like a proper Texas lady or she’ll get the boot and disgrace her family. The perk of being a debutante, of course, is going to parties, and it’s at one of these lavish affairs where Megan gets swept off her feet by the debonair and down-to-earth Hank Waterhouse. If only she didn’t have to contend with a backstabbing blonde and her handsome but surly billionaire boyfriend, Megan thinks, being a deb might not be so bad after all. But that’s before she humiliates herself in front of a room full of ten-year-olds, becomes embroiled in a media-frenzy scandal, and gets punched in the face by another girl.
The season has officially begun…but the drama is just getting started.

At first, i thought this was YA but then realised that the main character is 20 years old, so i guess it's technically New Adult. It kinda does have the YA vibe to it though, especially because of the cover(which made me think the book would be something similar to The Selection series). Oh, apparently this book is a modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice!(haven't read or watched p&p but i know generally what its about). 

The general plot was predictable, but the way that it all happened was pretty entertaining to read about. At some point, the story gets deeper when you learn about some of the character's past and i really like how absorbed i got into it till i forgot that Megan was a debutante in the season. And then there was the typical plot twist, which i actually really enjoyed and it made me want to rate this book higher than i originally planned. 

I thought that the writing was decent and was pretty easy to follow. I really enjoyed the way the authors described some things, especially when they wrote about a party with Alice in Wonderland as the theme. Man, that was pretty magical. Also, the whole upper-class vibe really reminded me of Rory being in her grandparents' world in Gilmore Girls, which was fabulous because i LOVE Gilmore Girls.

I feel like the book lacked romance a little bit, which was both good and disappointing. It was good because it managed to bring the focus on to Megan's development as an individual. But i definitely could have enjoyed more bubbly moments between the characters, especially at the end! I did gush at some of the flirting but I NEED MORE, PLEASE! I wouldn't mind if there was a sequel just so that i can fangirl and gush and ship the couples. Apart from some swearing and TALK of sex, this book was surprisingly pretty clean. I was expecting for there to be intimate descriptions since it's NA, but those scenes were mostly skipped.

I really liked most of the main characters, and Megan was a pretty entertaining protagonist herself. She knows she's not perfect, especially physically seeing as she always gets injuries from soccer and doesn't have the perfect body like her twin sister. I absolutely love books with good sisterly bonds and this book had that as well. The family relationships were very heartwarming to read about. The friendship conflict could have been dealt with better though, because it seemed brushed off and resolved too simplistically.

The main lesson i got from this book; just because someone is a certain way, it doesn't mean they can't be something else as well. I think the book showed this very nicely.

I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to read a nice contemporary! It got released on July 12th, so it should be out in most stores soon :)