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After We Collided
Anna Todd
674 pages | Published by Gallery Books
Oof. Where to begin with this one.
My summary here is brief - after learning about a horrible lie of Hardin's, Tessa is distraught but takes him back after meeting his mom and having another blow-up with her own mom. They go back and forth a lot, eventually spending a whole eleven days apart after another lie. During that time apart Tessa kisses someone else which makes Hardin mad. They fight again and makeup again.
A lot of the same conversations for nearly 700 pages, and I have a lot of the same thoughts on this book as the first book. I still find Tessa annoying, Hardin is still mean and manipulative (if I was Harry Styles I would be offended by this series), and I still can't tell if we're supposed to find that romantic or not (I think we are). I just can't ship them. I'm Team Trevor. Or even Team Zed. Literally Team Anyone But Hardin.
I will say off the bat that I appreciate the dual POV introduced in this book. While it didn't do much to sell me on the Hardin, it was nice to break up the book between Tessa and Hardin.
Here are a few things that made me literally laugh out loud because of how insane they felt:
Tessa's mom claiming Hardin will "ruin her" and if she's not careful, no one will want her. I'm sorry - she's a college freshman. Is time running out, already?
Tessa getting absolutely underage wasted with her adult coworkers on a work trip.
Tessa can just transfer schools in two weeks - not a problem. That's not how college works??
Tessa claiming Noah never really knew the "real Tessa" because now she wears sweatpants. (!!!!)
The quote that said something to the effect of "we're so good together because we are terrible for each other." PLEASE tell me there aren't young girls out there in the world emulating this relationship.
Hardin making vague death threats to people who try to come between them and Tessa thinking that he means them "in a loving way."
This book had me applauding Twilight - let me explain. During their near-two-week separation, we get day by day breakdowns of how miserable each of them are. Very melodramatic and over the top. Yuck. I rolling my eyes and yearning for the simplicity of New Moon's months passing by with blank pages. *Chefs kiss*
I think what all of my thoughts boil down to here is "What is the point, here? What message is this trying to give us?" I get a big victim-blaming vibe from the story - I'm SURE it's not what was intended (right??) but it's how I read it. There's a paragraph from Tessa's POV where she's thinking on how no one is perfect and no one is innocent. This left me with a horrible feeling - Hardin has been nothing but manipulative and controlling but she ALWAYS finds a way to agree that it's her fault. And the way the story unfolds, I feel that we're supposed to agree with her, which is so problematic I can't even begin to unpack it all.
I gave this a two-star rating, translating on Good Reads to "It was okay." I would not recommend this series to literally anyone, but I still feel compelled to finish out the series because I HAVE to know how it ends and final messaging - which is why it gets two stars instead of just one.
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