What I didn’t Say by Keary Taylor

What I Didn't Say by Keary Taylor
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 Stars

"I imagined us in a tiny, crappy apartment, poor as dirt, struggling to scrape by as we worked our way through college, married and in love. No matter what life brought us, we'd always have each other."

What can I say about What I Didn’t Say? … it was a very light read.

Jake gets into a car accident and it ruined his vocal cords so he can’t ever speak again. On the night of the accident he was on his way to tell Samantha, his longtime crush, that he loved her. Samantha doesn’t believe in love, but once Jake loses his voice, it seems like Jake and Samantha have more in common than they originally thought.

I really liked the summary, who doesn’t like the jock mute boy trying to tell his longtime brainy crush he’s in love with her?! How cute is that?

After reading a few of these books, I will just admit, I’m not a fan of young adult contemporary, so I’m a little bias.

There really wasn’t anything wrong with Jake or Samantha’s character, however there wasn’t anything extraordinary about them either. I am glad it was in Jake’s POV, considering he’s now mute, I think it wouldn’t have worked out if there was Sam’s POV too. I liked how Jake handled being mute. Jake didn’t “freak” out, he kind of was just going through the motions. The beginning was a little slow, but once we got past the accident, it started to picked up.

The main story isn’t only about Jake being mute and thank you for that. I was surprise there was a lot of substance. Sam’s character plays a huge role in the story and it was nice, different and kind of unexpected. Meaning it’s just Jake’s issues I’m reading about, I’m reading about two people “broken” trying to fix each other.

I guess I just wanted something more. Call me a romantic, but I wanted some “undying love” scenes. The target audience for What I didn’t say is definitely for the 14-15 year olds. Even though I wasn’t overly fond of the writing, the story did represent a good message and you were left with a feeling of gratitude for just having your life. Always a plus for me.

So, overall, a decent, light read, just not within my taste range.