Book Review: Where It Began by Ann Redisch Stampler

Title: Where It Began
Author: Ann Redisch Stampler
Publisher: Simon Pulse (Simon and Schuster)
Release Date: March 6th, 2012
Page Count: 384 Pages (Hardcover)
Source: Shanyn @ Chick Loves Lit
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Sometimes the end is just the beginning.

Gabby lived under the radar until her makeover. Way under. But when she started her senior year as a blonder, better-dressed version of herself, she struck gold: Billy Nash believed she was a the flawless girl she was pretending to be. The next eight months with Billy were bliss...Until the night Gabby woke up on the ground next to the remains of his BMW without a single memory of how she got there.

And Billy's nowhere to be found.

All Gabby wants is to make everything perfect again. But getting her life back isn't difficult, it's impossible. Because nothing is the same, and Gabby's beginning to realize she's missed more than a few danger signs along the way.

It's time for Gabby to face the truth, even if it means everything changes.

Especially if it means everything changes.

"Where It Began is a sharp, quick-witted YA debut that explores love and betrayal!"

Having heard mixed things about Stampler's leap into the YA world, I was eager to get my hands on a copy and find out for myself whether or not it was good! When I finally sat down to read it, I was immersed and slightly off-put by different things in Where It Began.

 What I really loved about Where It Began were the characters. Gabby is not some airhead girl, and she knows that she basically spent the last year of her life being some one-dimensional popular girl who has devoted her life to some jerk boyfriend just so she could be somebody. I really loved how half the story didn't end up being about her realizing how she'd ruined her life trying to be something she's not. The reader pretty much already knows this one hundred pages into the book.

 Besides Gabby, her mother and boyfriend were also fabulously portrayed. I found Vivian to be disturbingly real in her desperate need for her daughter to be popular and pretty and perfect and well-liked at school. The growth of Gabby and the inner turmoil of her mother facing her newly bruised and battered daughter was emotionally driven and deeply real. It was perfectly done. Billy Nash, Gabby's boyfriend ever since she got all perfect and popular, was also really well done. Ann did the best job of characterizing him in a murky way that made the reader feel conflicting things. Do you like Billy or do you hate him? Is he really using Gabby or does he truly love her? This inner conflict drove the novel along quite well!

 There was one small stump in the road, though. The writing style is, by far, the best I've seen in a long time. It's sharp, it's incredibly witty, it makes you laugh out loud and you feel every feeling there needs to be felt because Ann has this way of writing that is smart and just intelligent. But this writing style is still being developed, and I could tell as a reader and a reviewer. There were moments when I would have to re-read a sentence or a paragraph because Ann's way of writing is so different and unique, and the way she poses situations, or the set up of her analogies are just slightly jumbled that it took me a minute to register or understand them.

 This didn't happen constantly, but enough that I took some notice to it!

 Overall, Where It Began is a solid, emotional, and poignant story about the trials of love and heartbreak. Told in a sharp, witty prose that needs a little bit of fine tuning, you can bet I'll be reading whatever else Ann puts out!