My Never Ending List

“I was nothing before I met him.”

Girl wears long sleeves in summer, girl makes up excuses for her boyfriend’s obsessive behavior, girl can’t break up with boyfriend as his threatens scare her, is this really a relationship? It sound more like a fear but this is the relationship among fifteen-year old Bryn and her boyfriend, Preston in Boyfriends, Burritos & an Ocean of Trouble.  Had it not been for the car accident, the bruises and Bryn’s secret would have still remained hidden.  But now, doctors, parents, law enforcement and peers are involved and the situation has some individuals taking sides.  With her mother gone, her grandmother arrives to help Bryn handle the pressure. This is no older cookie-baking grandma though; Mim is a fun, surfing guru with a positive attitude, just what Bryn needs.  While her father is eager to make Preston pay for his actions, Mim is helping Bryn deal with her emotions and trying to help her heal.  Trying to confine in her older sister Tara, her sister’s lashing out brings Bryn to a standstill and she withdrawals.  The threats keep coming for Bryn to withdraw her claim but her pleads to her father are not heard. As she picks up the RL book that has magically appeared in her room, she feels as if someone is finally listening to her but the answers are not fully drawn out and immediate. Bryn wants immediate results before the text messages she has received become a reality.  Bryn feels she is losing everything she thought she had and the pressure from her “so-called” friend and the messages are a lot to handle on her own.   The violence escalates as Bryn learn to surf the waves.

I didn’t feel this was a preachy book, throwing religion in your face as some viewer mentioned.  Yes, there was the religion aspect of it with the RL book that Bryn kept picking up, trying to gain some footing, as she felt she was drowning in all the chaos that was happening in her life.  The stories in the RL book were biblical stories that I remembered hearing as a child, only they were retold as if the book were talking directly to Bryn. The stories are related to the mayhem that was happening to her life and how she was supposed to take that story and apply it to her life.  Later at the end of the book, it talks more about what the RL book is and why people like it – it’s a Real Life book, they use everyday language so it makes sense so people know how to read and understand it.  Enough about this.  I was riveted with all the activity taking place and the interactions among the characters, never a dull moment was inside the pages here.  Mim was like a breath of fresh air when everything around Bryn was collapsing.  There were times I got frustrated with Bryn and there were times, I had to remember she was only fifteen and she really needed a good best friend that she could rely on.