Book Review: Call It What You Want by Brigid Kemmerer
Call It What You Want by Brigid Kemmerer
Pages: 374
Publish date: June 27th, 2019
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
ISBN: 9781526605344
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – QBD
When his dad is caught embezzling funds from half the town, Rob goes from popular lacrosse player to social pariah. Even worse, his father’s failed suicide attempt leaves Rob and his mother responsible for his care.
Everyone thinks of Maegan as a typical overachiever, but she has a secret of her own after the pressure got to her last year. And when her sister comes home from college pregnant, keeping it from her parents might be more than she can handle.
When Rob and Maegan are paired together for a calculus project, they’re both reluctant to let anyone through the walls they’ve built. But when Maegan learns of Rob’s plan to fix the damage caused by his father, it could ruin more than their fragile new friendship…
This captivating, heartfelt novel asks the question: Is it okay to do something wrong for the right reasons?
Call It What You Want:
If you’ve been reading Angel Reads for a while, you would know that I love Brigid Kemmerer’s books, so there wasn’t a question about picking it up. and I wasn’t disappointed. Call It What You Want was fantastic. Kemmerer is able to do things with her characters that just make everything more real.
Call It What You Want by Brigid Kemmerer follows Rob and Maegan as they try to navigate their families, school and trying to find if you have to do something wrong to make things right. After Rob’s dad is caught embezzling money from half their down, Rob has to deal with the fallout that follows. After the pressure got to Maegan last year, she feels that everything around her is falling apart, and then her sister comes home pregnant. Now paired together for a project, Maegan and Rob try hard to keep their walls up, but that doesn’t seem to work. But when Rob attempts to fix his father’s wrongdoings that might be the end of them.
Maegan was such a great female protagonist. One of the things that Brigid Kemmerer does so well is make characters feel real and Maegan certainly does. I loved the honesty of Maegan, she never tried to hide her faults and that was very refreshing. I loved that she cracked under pressure – and that is horrible to say. But it made connecting with Maegan so much easier. It’s rare that readers see protagonists that make mistakes and even more admit those mistakes.
Rob is so human throughout Call It What You Want that it ended up being very stressful at times. He is a disaster really. But that is what made his character arc fantastic. It was addicting really. Rob is so vulnerable throughout the whole book. He is facing the crimes of his father and that would be hard on anyone, let alone a teenager. And he lets this all get to him. He isn’t just dealing with the isolation at school, but also at home. He also feels that because of his father he should also be a criminal, but truly Rob is soft and has this heart that melted me.
The relationship between Maegan and Rob has many ups and downs. There are a lot of stones to step over between the two of them. And then let their home lives and preconceived thoughts of one another really take over. But I loved that throughout Call It What You Want they really got to know each other. They are very different people at first and it was great seeing them interact with one another. They really brought out the best in one another. Maegan and Rob were so innocent with one another and gosh it made this book so good. Brigid Kemmerer is just fantastic at writing these relationships.
Family is a massive theme throughout Call It What You Want and it was done so well again by Brigid Kemmerer. She knows how to write complicated and beautiful family dynamics that take the reader on a journey. Maegan’s relationship with her sister was a major plot in this book. And I loved it. Their relationship has many ups and downs. They yell at one another, they scream at each other but they would also do anything for each other.
Rob’s relationship with his parents is very complicated and even more heartbreaking. After Rob’s father attempted to commit suicide it left him in a vegetative state. This has left Rob and his mother not only reeling with the fact that his father stole money but also having to piece their lives back together.
Friendship is an ongoing theme throughout Brigid Kemmerer’s books and it’s highlighted again in Call It What You Want. Owen was a fantastic character on his own, but the way that he interacts with Rob just melted my heart. Seriously the interactions between these two were fantastic. It’s probably one of these best male friendships that I’ve read in a while.
Brigid Kemmerer is able to seamlessly intertwine both Rob’s and Maegan’s storylines together. It’s always something that I’ve liked about her writing and she has done it again in Call It What You Want. The audience is able to tell who with are with any time and that makes reading the novel so much easier.
Overall, Call It What You Want by Brigid Kemmerer is exactly what I wanted. It was emotional, hard-hitting but also so beautiful. I loved both Rob and Maegan as both characters and protagonists. What I love about Kemmerer so much is that her characters feel very real. They have their own faults which add to their realness. Call It What You Want is the perfect example of a coming of age novel. It’s heartbreaking, full of angst but also absolutely beautiful. It explores the notion of loneliness and compassion and Brigid Kemmerer is just fantastic. If you are looking for a moving contemporary then please pick this one up.
Have you read Call It What You Want by Brigid Kemmerer yet? What did you think? Are you planning on reading it? What’s your favourite book by Brigid Kemmerer? Let’s Chat!
