Rowena’s review of Ditched by Robin Mellom.

Main Character: Justina Griffith
Love Interest: Ian Clark
Series: None
Author: Website|Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads

High school senior Justina Griffith was never the girl who dreamed of going to prom. Designer dresses and strappy heels? Not her thing. So she never expected her best friend, Ian Clark, to ask her.

Ian, who always passed her the baseball bat, handle first.

Ian, who knew exactly when she needed red licorice.

Ian, who promised her the most amazing night at prom.

And then ditched her.

Now, as the sun rises over her small town, and with only the help of some opinionated ladies at the 7-Eleven, Justina must piece together — stain by stain on her thrift-store dress — exactly how she ended up dateless. A three-legged Chihuahua was involved. Along with a demolition derby-ready Cadillac. And there was that incident at the tattoo parlor. Plus the flying leap from Brian Sontag’s moving car…

But to get the whole story, Justina will have to face the boy who ditched her. And discover if losing out at prom can ultimately lead to true love.

Filled with humor, charm, and romance, Ditched: A Love Story by debut novelist Robin Mellom will have readers dreaming of love on their own prom nights.

I went into this book thinking that it’d be a Hangover type of book and it is that, only at a more age appropriate version for the young folks. This story follows Justina Griffith, the morning after prom. This story revolves all around Justina trying to piece together her prom night to find out how she ended up falling out of Brian Sontag’s car and having to walk to the nearest 7-11 to figure out what to do next.

Justina had an interesting voice. It was easy to fall in with her story but there were times when I wanted to rip her a new one because she assumed too much about Ian and I wish she had more faith in him and in their friendship. I get that she’s young and doesn’t know any better but while she’s telling her story to those two ladies at the 7-11, Gilda and Donna, I couldn’t believe that they didn’t have an inkling about what Ian was really up to, even if they didn’t know the specifics, I knew and I was just hoping that they would know too but I didn’t get the sense that they did and more than anyone, Justina should have known that Ian would have never did what he did without a valid reason and when everything comes out in the end, I was left wanting to strangle Justina for being so dumb.

This was one of those books where I kept saying, “That would never happen” and yet I still ate up every word. It was fun and it was far fetched but it was a great ride while it lasted.

Justina was hard to take some of the time but I didn’t hate her, I just wanted to karate chop some sense into her, that’s all. I really liked the essence girls and as you see the night unraveling before our very eyes, it was fun to be swept up in the madness of the entire night. The tattoo parlor, the various stains on Justina’s dress, all of the blue going on with Justina’s outfit, all of it could have been too much cheese but Mellom did a great job of making it work anyway. This is the kind of story that teens would enjoy because so many outrageous things happen and the book ends the way it should end and overall, it was just a fun ride.

..and that’s your scoop!