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A review by brooke_review
Maybe Meant to Be by K.L. Walther
3.0
I picked up Maybe Meant to Be on author name recognition alone. I loved K. L. Walther's The Summer of Broken Rules, so of course I was eager to read this novel too. I was confused as to why it was being published so closely to What Happens After Midnight, but after some research, I learned that Maybe Meant to Be is a rebrand and reissue of Walther's debut novel, If We Were Us.
Armed with this knowledge, the questions I had surrounding this novel began to make a lot more sense. It very much reads like an underdeveloped first novel, and is nowhere near the same league as The Summer of Broken Rules. I couldn't understand how Walther had regressed so much, but now knowing that this novel was actually her first, I can give her a pass.
Maybe Meant to Be follows childhood best friends Sage and Charlie during their senior year at their New England boarding school. Because Sage and Charlie are so close, it has always been assumed that they would fall in love and end up together. However, both friends are hiding secrets. Sage has been crushing on Charlie's twin brother Nick, and Charlie has not told anyone that he is actually gay and is interested in the new guy at school. Sage and Charlie must figure out how to navigate these burgeoning relationships and feelings over the course of their senior year, while juggling schoolwork, family expectations, and friendships.
Maybe Meant to Be is a pretty dense book and would benefit from being edited down to create a tighter plot. As is, it meanders through the academic year at an uneven pace, sometimes making huge leaps in time. These time switches happen abruptly and without much notice, and if the reader is not paying attention, they may miss that the plot has suddenly moved ahead months in time. The relationships are also underdeveloped and are lacking any real chemistry, especially between Sage and Nick, which doesn't make it the most compelling to read. Lastly, there are a lot of characters, most of whom feel flat and unremarkable.
On the other hand, Walther has a way of creating interesting settings and opening up exclusive worlds to her readers, such as boarding school or Martha's Vineyard. The covers for her novels are also gorgeous, and her books give off an overall fun vibe.
While Maybe Meant to Be certainly isn't Walther's best, I am chalking it up to first novel inexperience. I still can't wait to pick up What Happens After Midnight!
Armed with this knowledge, the questions I had surrounding this novel began to make a lot more sense. It very much reads like an underdeveloped first novel, and is nowhere near the same league as The Summer of Broken Rules. I couldn't understand how Walther had regressed so much, but now knowing that this novel was actually her first, I can give her a pass.
Maybe Meant to Be follows childhood best friends Sage and Charlie during their senior year at their New England boarding school. Because Sage and Charlie are so close, it has always been assumed that they would fall in love and end up together. However, both friends are hiding secrets. Sage has been crushing on Charlie's twin brother Nick, and Charlie has not told anyone that he is actually gay and is interested in the new guy at school. Sage and Charlie must figure out how to navigate these burgeoning relationships and feelings over the course of their senior year, while juggling schoolwork, family expectations, and friendships.
Maybe Meant to Be is a pretty dense book and would benefit from being edited down to create a tighter plot. As is, it meanders through the academic year at an uneven pace, sometimes making huge leaps in time. These time switches happen abruptly and without much notice, and if the reader is not paying attention, they may miss that the plot has suddenly moved ahead months in time. The relationships are also underdeveloped and are lacking any real chemistry, especially between Sage and Nick, which doesn't make it the most compelling to read. Lastly, there are a lot of characters, most of whom feel flat and unremarkable.
On the other hand, Walther has a way of creating interesting settings and opening up exclusive worlds to her readers, such as boarding school or Martha's Vineyard. The covers for her novels are also gorgeous, and her books give off an overall fun vibe.
While Maybe Meant to Be certainly isn't Walther's best, I am chalking it up to first novel inexperience. I still can't wait to pick up What Happens After Midnight!