Love, Life and the List by Kasie West

Publisher: HarperTeen
On Sale Date: December 26th 2017
Pages: 384

Age Range: Young Adult

Seventeen year old Abby Turner has summer break, but it's going exactly in the opposite direction of her plans. Firstly, she has to deal with her mother, who is dealing with a severe form of anxiety disorders and is barely leaving the house. And then her art get's rejected for the local art show, because the organisor thinks her art has no heart.

And speaking of her heart, she lost it to her best friend Cooper, but he doesn't know it yet and is dating another girl.

Then Abby comes up with the idea to make a list, whereon she gives herself one month do to then things, ranging from face a fear (#3) to learn a stranger’s story (#5) to fall in love (#8). Maybe then she can be the artist she always wanted to be? She gets's another chance though to show her artwork in public! But during the time she crosses of her list, she figures out that first she has to change herself..

Wow, how many contemporary YA novels can one write in a year? Kasie West has two books coming out this year already, at two different publishers (HarperTeen and Scholastic) and I wonder if those two are the only ones or is there a third coming along too? This new book is the first in a set of three standalone novels with crossover characters. 

Altough the storyline was cute and the writing was nice, I found this book a little boring.

The plot was a little thin comparing to the amount of pages. You would think quite a few things would happen, but it all stayed a bit flat and I had the feeling that what happened in the book, happened also in a gazillion other YA novels.  Abby's art needed more heart, but this book certainly too.Her friendship and maybe love thing with Cooper was happening very slowly,  I will leave it out here if there was some real romance in the end, but it wasn't anything I haven't read before. The relationship with her grandpa was very adorable though, altough they couldn't help out her mother more, who somehow rejects their idea to get into therapy to beat her anxiety. It would be nice if there was some more development in this issues in the book that have led to a nicer and satisfying wrap up of the book.

Overall, my thoughts of this book are that there is othing that original and outstanding happening in it.