Ryan McCullough and Gabby Hart are the unlikeliest of best friends. Prickly, anxious Gabby would rather do literally anything than go to a party. Ultra-popular Ryan is a hockey star who can get any girl he wants–and frequently does. But somehow their relationship just works; from dorky Monopoly nights to rowdy house parties to the top ten lists they make about everything under the sun.
Now, on the night of high school graduation, everything is suddenly changing—in their lives, and in their relationship. As they try to figure out what they mean to each other and where to go from here, they make a final top ten list: this time, counting down the top ten moments of their friendship. The book is due to come out later this year. (Synopsis taken from katiecotugno.com)
As a lot of you know, I attended BookCon in June with my mom and one of the ARCs I was most excited to receive was a copy of Top Ten by Katie Cotugno. I waited on line for two hours at the Epic Reads booth to get the last copy. The minute I had the book in my hand, I wanted to start reading it but I used whatever strength I had left and waited for the summer to read it. And I devoured the book. I finished it within a week, which is a long time to read a book in the real world but when you’re in camp thats like nothing because you very rarely get a moment to yourself. The way I made sure I was able to finish my book was during rest hour I would have book club with my campers in my room and we would sit together and read our books.
I have read all of Katie Cotugno’s books and this one was by far one of the best ones I have read. The narrative is something we have never seen before, its written in third person while being from either Gabby or Ryan’s POV at the same time (which at first was really trippy but when you get used to it you realize how cool it is.)
From the moment I started reading the book, I fell in love with Ryan. He is confident and cares so much about his friends. A large part of Ryan’s heart is reserved for Gabby and he puts her first. Ryan is dealing with his own personal stuff throughout the whole book, his relationship with his father and the constant brain injuries from playing hockey play a big role in the story. Both of these things cause Gabby to be a little more on top of Ryan than she should. Gabby is a lot harder to “get” from the beginning of the book. Her character is a lot more reserved and shy, while Ryan is usually the star of the party.
Gabby is more reserved which plays a big part due to her anxiety. Gabby works extremely hard to barrel through it and allow it to not control her life, Ryan does a great job at helping her take control of her anxiety and be happy. I will say that while I was reading this book it did trigger some of my own anxiety and I had to put it down after awhile because I felt myself starting to get anxious from reading it.
This book does an amazing job at explaining and conveying how confusing friendships and relationships are between guys and girls. It shows that there is so much more to people than what we know about them.
I can’t wait for this book to come out so that everyone can read it and we can talk about it together. But this book was AMAZING.
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