Sometimes Never (Sometimes Never, #1) by Cherly McIntrye

Sometimes Never by Cheryl McIntyre
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars

“I think I just found my kindred spirit. Or my male alter ego. The Jekyl to my Hyde”

”Mason is my truck. I have no idea what happened, or how, or even why. I was just walking through my life one day and, BAM. Mason smashed into me. Into my mind. My body. My heart.”

Sometimes Never mirrors a lot like The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden and The Secret of Ella and Micha or Jessica Sorensen books, but not written as well. I know, it’s kind of mean to say, but I feel like I could have really loved Sometimes Never, but something was just always a touch off, hence the lower score rating.

Hope and Mason are troubled youths. Hope has a bad attitude and she kind of puts off this “cold” personality to keep people at arm’s length. Mason is the good looking new guy, always moving from school to school. When he first sees Hope defend herself against a jerk, Mason suddenly is in “love”. Mason does whatever he can to form a relationship with distant Hope.

I didn’t care for the summary. In fact, I would say a summary in general is kind of unnecessary (although I provided my version). Sometimes Never is basically about two troubled people working out personal issues. I LOVE troubled youths. When I read a book about a “perfect” 17-18 year-old, it kind of makes me want to vomit, so when I started to read Hope’s issues, I was really interested in where the story would go.

I didn’t care for Hope too much, although she does say some witty stuff. The whole “grunge” look wasn’t necessary, rainbow hair? I don’t know, it just didn’t jive with me, but I guess that’s a personal opinion. In the beginning Hope was kind of mystery to me and I wanted to figure out why she is the way she is, but like I said before there was just something off with her character.

In the end, I felt like McIntyre was trying too hard to create a “damaged” girl. I really don’t know how to describe it. I think it was just Hope’s attitude, she said some mean things that no heroine would ever say, no matter how flawed the heroine is supposed to be. I felt like Hope tried too hard to be the victim, by overreacting to certain situations and claiming to be “attacked”, when the people around Hope were just concerned for her.

I liked Mason, although I didn’t think he was too troubled. He was very open about his past and had this “brush-it-off” personality. I was confused, so is he damaged or does he just know how to handle stressful situations? I felt like Mason should just be the Hero. or damaged soul, he was a combination of the two and it didn’t work for me.

Personal opinion, I never got the chemistry between Hope and Mason. It’s kind of like watching a movie and they cast actors you really don’t like. No matter the situation or scenes I read, I couldn’t picture Hope and Mason actually together. I think Mason’s feelings were 100% unrealistic and I have no idea what he saw in Hope. I am all for epic take-my-breath-away love, but Sometimes Never was not it.

I liked the side characters, although Mason’s mom was kind of painful to read, especially towards the ending. I felt like her character was pretty much solid and then all of sudden I was slapped in the face. I did not care for that either and was kind of pissed off.

Another pet-peeve of mine is when authors do not explain the title of the book. It just takes a few sentences and when I don’t get my gratification, I cringe a little when I finish the book. Maybe I misread the story and Sometimes was obvious, but I didn’t see it.

Even though I mostly ranted, overall, Sometimes Never really did have some moments. There were no filler or annoying scene, everything just flowed and it was an enjoyable read, even though I had so many character issues. I have high hopes for McIntyre, I just hope a lot of the kinks are worked out and a little more originality is used.

”I should have given him my cell phone number. Along with email address, blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts. I have a very serious problem”