I really wasn't sure about this book when I first picked it up but ended up really liking it a lot!!! It's not the best book for you if you're looking for something plot heavy, but it's a really nice book to just sit down with, chill, and not have to think about anything too hard. Overall a very fun read!!

This book was so much fun!!! And I don’t mean it’s fun saying I am reading nothing though it really is!
This book was such a bubbly contemporary and I loved it you know what I am going to change it to 5 stars! Done ✅
There was only one thing I couldn’t relate to and that was (beware not exact quote) “he flicked his ponytail across his shoulder in that way where he doesn’t touch it and suddenly I am filled with lust”
Ewww if you know what I mean!

I finished this book less than 12 hours ago and I already remember nothing about it.

Nothing ever happens to Charlotte and Frankie. Their lives are never going to be immortalized in the pages of a YA novel because they are way too boring. They don't have glorious red hair or super hot love interests. Theirs lives aren't falling apart and they definitely aren't werewolves. Charlotte and Frankie just live at home with their parents who are pretty normal. They go to high school. That's about it. Nothing.

Charlotte decides to prove how boring their lives are by writing all about everything that happens to both of them during their sophomore year. But as Charlotte tries to prove that life doesn't have a plot or character development she starts to realize that real life might have its charms after all in Nothing (2017) by Annie Barrows.

Nothing is Barrows' YA debut novel. The story was inspired by Barrows' own children bemoaning their totally mundane and non-book-worthy lives.

The novel is written in alternating first person narration with Charlotte's writing project and Frankie's more traditional prose. Despite having distinct personalities and unique arcs, it's often hard to distinguish between Frankie and Charlotte's narrations as their voices blend together thanks to similar phrasing and cadence.

Charlotte and Frankie are authentic teens who fall decidedly on the younger end of the YA spectrum. There are no soul mates or life and death situations here but there are crushes, party-induced hangovers, and a couple of big surprises.

A quick, contemporary read ideal for anyone who enjoys realistic fiction with a healthy dose of laughs, strong friendships, and minimal drama or tears.

Possible Pairings: Bookishly Ever After by Isabel Bandeira, Revenge of the Girl With the Great Personality by Elizabeth Eulberg, Where I Belong by Gwendolyn Heasley, Confessions of a Not It Girl by Melissa Kantor, The Boyfriend List by E. Lockhart, Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales

I'm way too old for this kind of schtick. Maybe the vernacular was characteristic of 15-year-olds. Except they still ended up doing a lot more than I ever did at 15. We never had ragers. We never drank or went on 8-hour road trips. I'm only familiar with the mundane stuff, like grumbling about doing homework and sitting in silence with friends, messaging other people and liking things on instagram. What a sad life we lead, eh?

The characters were highly immature and had almost no personal growth. The book was meta, but in a cringey way. If anything, it just depicted teenage girls as incredibly vapid/shallow. I mean, I'm glad they point out when something unusual is going on (standing on her porch at sunset, alone and in her best dress? Sure, why not!), but I felt like those plot points just compounded the ridiculousness of this story.

If nothing is going to happen, you need to commit to it. If things DO happen, don't pretend that this story is about regular 15-year-olds. Then again, I usually believe that even ordinary lives can be fascinating. In this case, I guess I was just brought back to a more shallow and wasteful time in life.

At first I didn't like this book because of all the Nothing-ness but the author did a great job showcasing that nothing isn't always nothing.

This is what teenage girls sound like: the BFF code/jokes, the levels of like/love/angst, etc.. Pitch perfect. And yes, this is (like Seinfeld infamously was) about "nothing", the "nothing" that goes into our daily lives particularly when we're teen girls in high school. What stopped this from being a five-star was the odd decision to alternate chapters between first and third person. No idea why that was thought to be a good idea (perhaps, better differentiate between Charlotte and Franklin?) but it does get distracting.

ARC provided by publisher.

In the parlance of "windows" and "mirrors," I read a lot of "window" books. I read a lot of books about children and teens who aren't growing up like I grew up: who come from afar, or live in poverty, or are haunted by the ghost of a vengeful classmate in 1919. I mean, *shrug* what do you write a novel about? Not about me and my boring life.

Which is the total premise of Nothing. The book begins with Charlotte telling Frankie the salient points of the book she's reading, and Frankie goes, 'aaand then the mother dies.' 'No, in this one it's the brother. But you're on the right track,' says Char. Or something like that, I don't have it in front of me. Char goes on to moan about how THEIR lives would never make a decent teen novel, because NOTHING ever happens to them.

And this is true. They text, they do their homework, Frankie learns to drive. Like all teens, they use profanity like professionals. They are extremely funny all the while. But nothing happens. I read this book on the couch last night, giggling and side-eyeing my teenage sons, kind of thinking, 'Why on earth does this book actually work?,' until i realized, "Ohhhhh. I bet you Annie Barrows has teenage daughters and she is just CRAZY about them!"

Because this book is a total mirror for me. I have sons who are the funniest things that ever farted on cue, and if I could write worth a damn, this is the book I would write about them. I can feel the love.

And oh my god, how privileged am I that the book that most closely mirrors my life is 100% uneventful??

I mean, quite frankly, I'm not even sure I should be reviewing it - I don't know if I have enough perspective. And I don't know if it has a big audience. It might *just* be for college-bound girls from white-collar families - girls whose brothers do not have to fear the police; who experienced childhoods devoid of adverse experiences; who are neither bullied first-generation Americans, terminally ill, nor haunted by vengeful ghosts.

This bugs me. It shouldn't be solely within the precinct of the privileged to see oneself in such a sweet, funny, snarky book. While we advocate for diverse books and #ownvoices, let's make sure we seek out and champion warm, nontragic books like this one for every kid who might search the teen section in search of a character who looks like them.

Maybe this is on my mind because the last book I read was The Hate U Give, and while that book was exceptional in its handling of crisis, it was also terrific at the small, funny moments between friends and family members. I sort of wish for a follow-up novel in which Starr and Kenya and Chris and DeVante get to have a senior year of high school in which nothing happens.

Every kid deserves a little dose of Nothing.

Conceptually, I thought it was a great idea. Execution wise...eh? I wished there was less making fun of diversity in YA (which is a real problem--and especially in a book that doesn't have any diversity) as opposed to all the other YA tropes that are easy to make fun of like love triangles or sequels after sequels after sequels or the rise of half stories, etc.

I enjoyed the characters and thought they were funny, but the making fun of the Iranian lesbian who was raped in the first few pages was a little too much for me.

eh