Not Exactly a Love Story by Audrey Couloumbis // Exactly the love story I wanted

Not Exactly a Love Story by Audrey Couloumbis
Genres: Contemporary (YA), Coming of Age (YA), Romance (YA)
Pages: 288
Goodreads

It's 1977. 
Fifteen-year old Vinnie isn't having a good year. He's recovering from the worst case of galloping acne his dermatologist's ever seen. His girl moved to California without even saying good-bye. And the ink on his parents divorce papers is barely dry, when his mom announces that they're moving from Queens to Long Island.
The silver lining in all this is that they move next door to Patsy—everyone's dream girl. Not that she'd ever notice him. But when Vinnie calls Patsy one night, it leads to a chain of anonymous midnight conversations. Under the cover of darkness, Vinnie becomes Vincenzo, Patsy's mystery caller, and the two share a side of themselves they would never reveal in daylight and develop a surprisingly real connection (despite the lies it's built on). As Vinnie gets to know Patsy in real life though, it becomes clear both identities can't survive and he'll have to find a way to hangup the phone and step into the daylight. Fraught with complications and crackling with witty dialogue, and all the angst and electricity that comes with always being just a phone wire away from the one you want, acclaimed author Audrey Couloumbis's YA debut is a smooth-talking Cyrano meets Saturday Night Fever and tells a quirky, flirty, and smart story that will appeal to fans of Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Frank Portman's King Dork, Natalie Standiford's How to Say Goodbye in Robot, and John Green's An Abundance of Katherines. It's not exactly a love story . . . but it's pretty close.  

This was a very unique take on a high school romance. The beginning just dives right into Vinnie’s life and progresses quickly to get to what the story is about – his relationship with one of the school’s most popular girls, Patsy. The whole story itself is somewhat repetitive – a late night phone call, followed by awkward encounters at school, then another late night phone call. In some weird way, that worked. It kept me reading and looking forward to those phone calls. 

The only thing I did not enjoy was the ending. While it wrapped up the story, it also left this awkward, incomplete feeling. I just wanted more.

The main character, Vinnie, is one interesting guy. He’s awkward and quiet at school, but during his phone calls with Patsy, he becomes a completely new person. He battles with himself about these somewhat “split personalities” that he has, and honestly, at times, I’d get a little confused myself (but in a good way).

The other characters kind of take a backseat since the focus of the story is on Vinnie and, what I interpreted as, his story of finding himself. However, Patsy obviously played a big role, too. She was a likable character. That was refreshing, considering she is the popular girl and most books really make the popular girl seem evil. She had a lot more depth to her than I expected. 

At the start, the pace was incredibly fast. It literally jumped from one big change in Vinnie’s like to the next. At first, this threw me off but once I got through the 50 pages of it, it made sense. It was just trying to build up all the bad stuff in his life quickly to get to the important stuff (aka Patsy).

I very much enjoyed the writing. It’s realistic. They’re high school kids and their phone conversations reflected that. Also, Couloumbis did a great job at creating the “two” Vinnies. What I touched on earlier was that I would get confused but in a good way. To elaborate, his personality on the phone got so convincing that at times, I would sometimes get mad at Patsy for things she would do outside of the phone calls that would affect either Vinnie or Vincenzo. Now, if that’s not a fantastic emotional connection to the characters, I don’t know what is. (Also, this is super hard to explain without spoilers!)

This book is a very cute, light read if you’re looking for a high school romance. It’s a bit different and quirky in the approach but creates a great connection to the characters. The writing is quick, witty and has moments of depth that I really enjoyed. I love that it asks the question who are you? are you defined by your labels? does society determine the actions you take? Simple questions, but also some great discussion points. I definitely recommend this book.

I noticed some people complain about that “stalker-ish” theme throughout because of Vinnie – keep in mind this book is based in the 70’s. At least for me, that gave me  a different perspective on Vinnie’s approach at getting to know Patsy.

Rating Report
Plot
Characters
Writing
World Building
Overall:	5 / 5