**Thank you to Wednesday Books for the giveaway I won on Goodreads for this book. These are my honest opinions, and I was in no way compensated for this review.**
Not Now, Not Ever by Lily Anderson
Release Date: November 21, 2017
My Rating: 4.5 stars
Summary: The sequel to The Only Thing Worse than Me Is You, inspired by The Importance of Being Earnest.
Elliot Gabaroche is very clear on what she isn't going to do this summer.
1. She isn't going to stay home in Sacramento, where she'd have to sit through her stepmother's sixth community theater production of The Importance of Being Earnest.
2. She isn't going to mock trial camp at UCLA.
3. And she certainly isn't going to the Air Force summer program on her mother's base in Colorado Springs. As cool as it would be to live-action-role-play Ender's Game, Ellie's seen three generations of her family go through USAF boot camp up close, and she knows that it's much less Luke/Yoda/"feel the force," and much more one hundred push-ups on three days of no sleep. And that just isn't appealing, no matter how many Xenomorphs from Alien she'd be able to defeat afterwards.
What she is going to do is pack up her attitude, her favorite Octavia Butler novels, and her Jordans, and go to summer camp. Specifically, a cutthroat academic-decathlon-like competition for a full scholarship to Rayevich College, the only college with a Science Fiction Literature program. And she's going to start over as Ever Lawrence, on her own terms, without the shadow of all her family’s expectations. Because why do what’s expected of you when you can fight other genius nerds to the death for a shot at the dream you’re sure your family will consider a complete waste of time?
This summer's going to be great.
I loved Not Now, Not Ever much more than I anticipated! I had actually heard of this one a couple of months ago and decided to read the first one because of the wait, and while I enjoyed that one, I think I liked this one a lot more. It also might be because I understood a lot more of the references in this book because I've actually read The Importance of Being Earnest in school.
If you haven't read or heard of The Importance of Being Earnest before, the gist is this: double lives, secret identities, and trying really hard to hide these, but someone comes along and ruins it. Lily Anderson rooted this book in a lot of this, along with quoting the play a lot, which I thought was really cute and set the scene more.
In true Wilde fashion, Elliot Gabaroche, or Ellie, runs away from her life in Sacramento to Oregon to participate in a camp where she could win a full four-year scholarship to her dream college. She's escaping the expectations of both her parents, and she just wants to have a fun summer. You know, while also taking a second identity, Ever Lawrence, and hiding that from everybody. In a "cutthroat academic-decathlon-like competition" where they basically have to memorize random facts and try to win random competitions every day. But fun, right? But someone comes along and almost ruins the whole thing . . .
I loved Ever so much! As someone with a lot of parental expectations, I completely related with her character. Pursuing a dream that your parents disapprove of hits really close to home, and I loved how Ever handled it. I loved all of the other characters as well! They're all in a camp for geniuses, but they're all so different from each other, it was funny. I would recommend, though, to read The Only Thing Worse than Me Is You before reading this one because you'll have a lot more fun when you see the characters from the first book and how they interact from a third party observer. (Ever is so confused by them lol but you're in the know, so you understand all their little jokes and digs.) Also, there's so much diversity in this book! Ever is black and has her natural hair. A lot of the side characters are PoC, especially the background ones (which you may not consider representation, but I do! I love when authors throw in random names that are clearly PoC and not just John Doe or something equally white).
I think I liked the romance in the first book more, just because I love a hate-to-romance relationship, but the ship in this book is so cute! There's also a side mlm ship that was cute, and if you read the first book, you may or may not see some of the ships from there ;).
The only thing I didn't really like was that the "mystery" part was solved pretty quickly. I wish we got to see more of the steps that led up to the answer, but I still didn't see any of it coming.
This book was such a fun read. I definitely needed this with all the stress I'm under from school; it'll make you laugh and smile and just feel good. I wholeheartedly recommend Not Now, Not Ever, and I really hope you'll pick it up on November 21! Until then, you may want to check out The Only Thing Worse than Me Is You, so you can see all the geekiness and witticisms that you'll also get in the second book, and you'll understand more of Not Now, Not Ever!
About the Author: Lily Anderson is an elementary school librarian and Melvil Dewey fangirl with an ever-growing collection of musical theater tattoos and Harry Potter ephemera. She lives in Northern California. She is also the author of The Only Thing Worse than Me Is You.
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