Reviewer: Rowena Did I Mention I Love You? by Estelle Maskame
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Publication Date: December 1st 2015
Genres: Young Adult
Pages: 416
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Love is everything but expected.
Eden Monro came to California for a summer of sun, sand and celebrities what better way to forget about the drama back home? Until she meets her new family of strangers: a dad she hasn't seen in three years, a stepmonster and three stepbrothers.
Eden gets her own room in her dad's fancy house in Santa Monica. A room right next door to her oldest stepbrother, Tyler Bruce. Whom she cannot stand. He's got angry green eyes and ego bigger than a Beverly Hills mansion. She's never felt such intense dislike for someone. But the two are constantly thrown together as his group of friends pull her into their world of rule-breaking, partying and pier-hanging.
And the more she tries to understand what makes Tyler burn hotter than the California sun, the more Eden finds herself falling for the one person she shouldn't...
Did I Mention I Love You? is the addictive first book in Wattpad sensation Estelle Maskame's DIMILY trilogy: three unforgettable summers of secrets, heartbreak and forbidden romance.
My first thought upon finishing this book was, “Finally”. I started giving this book almost 3 stars but the more I thought about it, the more I disliked this book. I wanted to read this book because it’s set in Santa Monica, which isn’t too far from me but I barely paid any attention to the setting because the characters drove me absolutely bonkers.
I was not a fan of either Eden or Tyler.
Eden reminded me of Bella Swan. She was a normal teenaged girl but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what was so special about her. I didn’t connect with her on any kind of level and when all was said and done, I still felt nothing for her. She was a follower, she did whatever those around her did. Not necessarily because she wanted to but because everyone else was doing it. She didn’t really have any kind of drive to blaze her own path and if I’m going to invest my time in a character, I’d like the protagonist to stand for something. I didn’t feel like I got that from Eden. I didn’t understand why everyone thought she was so special. I just didn’t see it.
Eden’s father left years ago and she hasn’t seen him since. She had no interest in seeing him until she finds out that he lives in Santa Monica, California and because she’s interested in seeing where he lives, she agrees to spend the summer with him. Her father has a new wife, who came with three sons.
One of those sons is Tyler. He’s the oldest of her father’s step-sons and ugh. Just ugh. For a huge chunk of this book, Tyler is a total douche-wad. I couldn’t stand him. He was so mean, mean-spirited and just a complete asshole that I didn’t think I’d ever warm up to him. Yeah, he comes around and finally gets the help he needed but he wasn’t any kind of book boyfriend material for me. I spent too much time not liking him and thinking that he had no business sniffing around Eden that I was glad to finally be done with the book at the end.
There was a lot of casual teen behavior. Lots of drinking, drugs, sex and ugh. Just, ugh. I can’t think of a single thing that I liked about this book. I used to love reading YA books but I’m finding that the YA books that interest me, don’t win me over when I read them so I’m probably not going to read very many new to me YA authors this year.
Grade: 1 out of 5