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Jasprit

Jasprit

Love & Leftovers

Love & Leftovers - 3.5 stars “Love and Leftovers is a beautifully written story of one girl’s story navigating family, friends and love and a compelling and sexy read that teens will gobble up whole”This description on the jacket flap pretty much sums up my reading experience of Love and Leftovers. The writing is mesmeric, that before you know it you’re reading the book at a frenzied pace. The fact that this was a verse book was I guess what surprised me the most as I wasn’t expecting it to be a verse novel but seeing as I’ve quickly become a verse fan I was quite stoked to be reading it. The verse books I’ve read so far were full of such beautiful writing; that you find yourself going back re- reading passages. Love and Leftovers were no different; it was full with several beautiful passages that before I knew it my copy was over flowing with post its marking my favourite quotes. “Your arms ache to hold someoneyou move in slow motion from one hug to the nextso you won’t jostle the warm feeling off your shouldersbefore the next hug comes you wayyour heart feels hollowthat emptiness screams like an addition to be filled even if it means doing hurtful, selfish thingsto get a fix.” Love and Leftovers tells the heartfelt story of Marcie, whose parents are going through a separation. Marcie’s mum makes a decision to move out to the summer house in New Hampshire, before she knows Marcie’s enrolled into a new school, permanently leaving her dad, best friends and boyfriend Linus behind. Marcie has a lot of change to deal with within a small amount of time, on top of this she also has to deal with the fact that her mum isn’t coping at all; she never seems to make it out of bed or take the responsibilities that an adults supposed to, instead it’s left up to Marcie to fend for herself. After torturous weeks of only communicating with her boyfriend and best friend over the phone or through instant messaging and just watching their music video’s she finds herself completely alone, she can’t talk to her mum as she’s always shut away in her room. And after everything that’s happened with her parents she begins having doubts about her own relationship with Linus; she really seeks some sort of physical comfort a hug, a reassuring hand on the shoulder, she misses Linus terribly but he’s 2700 miles away. So she starts hanging out with J.D a guy from school he’s nice, sensitive brings her doughnuts and before you know it he’s filling that big gaping hole within her with the love and comfort she’s longed for.The things that miffed me about this book; Now I don’t condone cheating and so I lost a lot of respect for Marcie for starting something up with J.D without breaking up with Linus first. If she broke up with him first then it would have been fine as she wouldn’t have to hide anything or feel guilty all the time. At the end of the day I actually preferred J.D a lot more to Linus. I know a lot of my friends liked Linus, but I just didn’t click with him, yes the fact he was in a band was cool, his songs were sweet, but I honestly thought Marcie had the better relationship with J.D. I didn’t like the way she was abruptly taken away from J.D, I honestly thought that she would end up with him in the end, not that her and Linus would get back togetherI really did think Marcie was selfish at times; of course your boyfriend would break up with you if you cheated on him, yes her parents’ marriage was in tatters, she had no one, and her boyfriend was miles away. But that still doesn’t excuse you from cheating on him. I felt that a lot of the time she felt sorry for herself even though it was her fault; when her best friend wasn’t talking to her, when Linus was with someone else and she realised she wanted him back. I’m sorry girl you bought it all on yourself. Despite these minor irks Love and Leftovers was a cute and entertaining debut from Sarah Tregay, it wasn’t one of the best verse books I’ve read, but still reasonably enjoyable.