Review: If There's No Tomorrow by Jennifer L. Armentrout

If There's No Tomorrow by Jennifer L. Armentrout
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If There's No Tomorrow caught me off guard, I kind of expected some kind of teen drama that makes main character Lena rethink her choices. She does rethink her choices, but the drama was not due to anything I initially expected. This was a good thing, because often YA follows the same kind of formula, and this gave it a bit of a unite plot which I appreciated. Lena does make a mistake, and she must deal with her choices and the guilt that comes in the aftermath of a life changing incident. I won't tell you what happens because that is a spoiler and a huge part of the story. The story is centered around Lena learning to deal and own the choices she made and how they have changed her and impacted her actions towards the people who are closest to her. Lena was closed off before the incident, never really telling people what she wants or how she feels. She bottles everything up, never wanting to be a bother or make a big deal out of anything. She also never feels she is good enough, pushing compliments off onto others. Lena is also in love with the boy next store Sebastian who is also her best friend. This part is very predictable, you know they have both been in love with each other forever, but neither told each other and you know in the end they are going to get together. You also can predict that Lena is going to eventually get over herself and fix her problems. In typical YA fashion, her character is flawed, but I found that she actually started to move into "I know I'm wrong and I need to do something about it" territory before she got to "I'm so whiny I'm annoying but you know you are going to keep reading to find out what happens" territory. This often happens with the flawed YA main character, they whine and take forever to own up to their mistakes, Lena owned up right away to her choices, but took the right amount of time to deal with her guilt and grief over what happened. I think this was done well.

I found the plot was fairly predictable. The romance took a back seat to the plot, but it was always there and you knew from the moment Lena mentions Sebastian how it was going to play out. I think Lena had a great support system in place and I like that her mom expressed her disappointment in her poor judgement, but she also told her she loved her and would be there for her every step of the way. Her friends never abandoned her, but they told her point blank when she was being a jerk and hurting them.

I think this is a great book for teens and college students to read, as the life altering thing that happens to Lena is a very real choice that people are faced with and often make the same choice she did. Like many of Lena's friends, they come out OK, but often they do not. As Lena's friends admit when she finally confides in them, they would all have probably made the same choice and had made that same choice before, but they had come out on the lucky side. I think people can relate to the story.

If you've read any of my reviews before, contemporary isn't really my favorite genre, but JLA is one of my favorite authors.  I'll read pretty much whatever she writes, and I found this to be pretty enjoyable.  I listened to the audio book in about a day and a half.