Our Song – Jordanna Fraiberg

    Olive Bell has spent her entire life in the beautiful suburb of Vista Valley, with a picture-perfect home, a loving family, and a seemingly perfect boyfriend. But after a near-fatal car accident, she’s haunted by a broken heart and a melody that she cannot place.
Then Olive meets Nick. He’s dark, handsome, mysterious . . . and Olive feels connected to him in a way she can’t explain. Is there such a thing as fate? The two embark on a whirlwind romance—until Nick makes a troubling confession.
Heartbroken, Olive pieces together what really happened the night of her accident and arrives at a startling revelation. Only by facing the truth can she uncover the mystery behind the song and the power of what it means to love someone.

OUR SONG was an interesting read for me. The first half of the book actually went by really quickly. I was really interested in Olive’s story and I totally breezed through. The second half of the book sort of seemed to take a lot longer for me to get through, though.

The story starts off with Olive Bell coming back home after a car accident for which she spent two weeks in the hospital. She can’t quite remember the details of what happened and why except for the fact that she has this string of lyrics and a melody running through her head — a faded memory of the accident and a key to the mystery of it all. I loved this puzzle of the mystery song throughout the first half of the book! I was dying to know why this song was stuck in her head and how come she couldn’t find any information about it.
The second half of the book kind of let me down with the reveal of how the song was related to the accident, though. I thought the reveal was kind of… off the path of where the book was taking us. It just didn’t seem to fit the general feel, in my opinion. Just didn’t do it for me. What I DID like was the reveal of Olive’s actual accident and the events leading up to it. I was like, “OHHH that makes so much sense!” That was very fitting, even if I wasn’t sold on the song part of it.

I like that Olive was basically reinventing herself after the accident. She knew it was a defining moment in her life — not just because she had technically died and come back to life — but also because although she couldn’t quite remember what, she knew there was something that led to the accident that changed her. I like that she didn’t just go back to her regular life, as much as she had originally wanted to. It was nice to see that change in her and to see her making her own choices instead of what she thought other people wanted.
On the flip side, I wasn’t quite sure I like the ways that she changed. The romance in this book, Nick, sort of became her partner in crime, so to speak, but I actually didn’t like their rebellious  nature together. Maybe it’s because I’m still that girl who finds the need to please other people, but I kind of felt like Nick was getting her into more trouble than helping her. I guess in the long run, he really helped her figure out who she wanted to be, even if she did a few crazy things along the way, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was more of a bad influence on her than a good one. *shrugs*

That being said, I just never really ended up liking Nick as the romance. He felt unreliable and dangerous. I mean, this girl was in a car accident, right? So why does she never speak up when he’s driving around recklessly through L.A. in a beat up Jaguar (which clearly has been through some traumatic things on its own)? If Olive didn’t even want to drive anywhere near where the accident happened, why was she okay with Nick driving so crazily? She was holding on for dear life a few times, sure, but even still. I felt like that didn’t quite fit.

I liked how the ending came around with Olive and the issues she had with her family, her final decision about ex-boyfriend Derek, and a touching conclusion with Nick, but it all felt a little too perfect for me. Mostly with her family. I liked that things wrapped up well with her family, but it all felt too convenient and quick.

I think I was just much more invested in the first half of OUR SONG than the second and I wasn’t quite sold on several things in the end. The fact that I never connected with Nick as a romantic interest and failed to swoon didn’t quite help my enjoyment of the book! I think a lot of people can like this one, but it just wasn’t quite for me.

Olive: I liked Olive and her transformation as well as how she ended up dealing with the aftermath of her car accident. I felt like she made a lot of mistakes and at times was a little melodramatic, but then again, hey. She’s a teenager. I felt like she was a little too all over the place for my personal tastes and when it came down to it, I just found it hard to root for her and Nick until the very, very end.
Nick: Nick’s a little bit of a wild child, it seems. He’s got his own demons, that’s clear, but I wish the story had delved into those a little bit sooner so I could have made a more personal connection with him. He felt like he was hiding so many things from Olive for such a long time, which I guess he was. Once I finally found out what those things were, I was like, “OH I like you much better now because I understand you.” I didn’t get Nick half of the book so I just couldn’t make that connection with him and I didn’t find myself swooning.
Annie: Annie was Olive’s best friend in the book, who I LOVED. She pushed Olive to be her own person and to discover who she wanted to be, but not in the way that Nick did. She seemed to push her in a much more positive way and she was always there for Olive, even when Olive ended up ditching her a few times. She was a good friend and very lively! What I didn’t like was the turn her own story line took. I just didn’t think it was necessary. Not like I had anything against it, but it didn’t seem to have a place in the book and was just a bit of extra drama.

Borrow it

It was enjoyable at first and then it wasn’t AS good. I had hoped for more but it may be hit or miss with some!

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