review: first & then

First & Then by Emma Mills is a very cute and cliché Young Adult contemporary. I quite enjoyed it and I'm rating it between 3.8 and 4 stars!

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Devon Tennyson wouldn't change a thing. She's happy watching Friday night games from the bleachers, silently crushing on best friend Cas, and blissfully ignoring the future after high school. But the universe has other plans. It delivers Devon's cousin Foster, an unrepentant social outlier with a surprising talent for football, and the obnoxiously superior and maddeningly attractive star running back, Ezra, right where she doesn't want them: first into her P.E. class and then into every other aspect of her life.
Pride and Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights in this contemporary novel about falling in love with the unexpected boy, with a new brother, and with yourself.

The general plot was quite predictable, but i still found the book entertaining anyway. The story was mainly about a girl named Devon, who suddenly has her cousin, Foster, living with her family. Foster goes to school with Devon every day, and they have the same gym class together despite Foster being younger. A lot of interesting surprises started to happen while Devon got to know her cousin better. It was said that First & Then had a Pride and Prejudice vibe to it, and it did a little bit with Ezra Lynley's popularity playing football. I liked how there was discussion about the whole political side of sports. I also appreciated how heartwarming and simple the ending was.

One of the best things about this book is definitely the character development. Devon was a character who was quite uncertain about her interests and her future. You could see that she was the type who was happy to stay in her comfort zone, but had realised the reality of the world and went through the dilemma of deciding how she wanted to adapt to it. She was also someone who had a fairly decent life, one without too many troubles. I liked seeing her learn about certain people's struggles and try to understand and empathize them. Foster was also a very charming character to read about, and i absolutely adore Ezra Lynley.

I didn't have that many problems with the book, apart from two things. Firstly, i thought the first half was a little boring and draggy, but it picked up well in the middle until the end. I also found all the swearing in the book to sound a bit out of place most of the time. Like, it felt like the author was trying to hard to make it sound like highschool dialogue, that sometimes it just didn't sound right. The book could've gone perfectly well without most of it.

All in all, it's a nice contemporary to read if you need something very light. It's not too fluffy with romance, but it has its moments. There's some sweet family moments too, especially between Devon and Foster. I'd recommend it to those who love YA contemporary :)