I can see that this book might get comparisons to Fangirl, but it seems much more grounded to me. It's such a refreshing read and I related SO MUCH to the struggles Laila went through. I enjoyed the nuances throughout, the diversity, the humour. Sometimes the backstory was a little full on with descriptions but otherwise - a joy to read.

Laila Piedra is an 18-year-old senior preparing for graduation and fangirling over a sci-fi television show called The Rest. She also loves writing her own story of science fiction which she shares only with her creative writing teacher, Mr Madison. However, when Mr Madison is in a car accident and is replaced with a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Nadiya Nazarenko, Laila is pushed to explore life outside her comfort zone to please her overly critical new creative writing teacher.

Laila is a complex character. She already questioning herself as a person and her talent as a writer at the start of the book. She is passionate but does not seem to truly know who she is yet and so when feedback from her story comes back saying she must have a boring life and not take enough risks, Laila decides to take that on board and start taking risks. This does not always work out for her, but there is self-discovery weaved into her end of senior year journey.

She has three friends that all love The Rest - Leo, Felix and Hannah - and a family that care about her. These are obviously the people she begins to push away as her piece for her creative writing class becomes her sole priority. The things she does to "inspire" her writing is actually just destroying her soul and her previous limitations are left so far behind that person she was before barely exist anymore. The only positive to come from this Laila exploring her self-worth and discovering who she does not want to be.

Another large focus of the story is sexuality. Laila makes mention that she was religious which is why she struggles to accept her feelings regardless of who she is kissing, but it also is her explanation as to why anything sexual seems weird and feels like a sin. The book also deals with depression, though it is more implied than mentioned. Her internal battles and self-destruction while trying to perfect her writing for Nadiya breaks her. Laila needed help with her writing, but a decent human being would have recognised that she was already at risk of a mental health disorder and not pushed off a metaphorical cliff in the darkness that is depression. Depression is different for everyone but I did like how this book showed Laila's emotions and how uncontrollable life events can affect a person. 

The plot and the character felt so realistic I would not be surprised if this was Riley Redgate's personal story just with a few details changed to make it fictional. It felt like there was a lot of heart and soul poured into this book and I connected with Laila more than I do most main characters. It was a brilliant story that contains a few hard truths many of us need to face. However, while this book was fantastic in many ways and I liked it a lot, for me, it lacked enjoyment. I know this was not the type of book to have adventures or epic battles, but I just do not feel excited when I think about the book. Great book, 100% recommend, it was just missing that spark I look for in books.

First of all, let me thank Netgalley and ABRAMS Kids/Amulet Books for the chance to read and review this book: Final Draft, pre-release. As always, these thoughts are my own. This review is spoiler-free and no main plot points are revealed.

I give this story 3.25 stars.

Final Draft
Synopsis:

The only sort of risk 18-year-old Laila Piedra enjoys is the peril she writes for the characters in her stories: epic sci-fi worlds full of quests, forbidden love, and robots. Her creative writing teacher has always told her she has a special talent. But three months before her graduation, he's suddenly replaced—by Nadiya Nazarenko, a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist who is sadistically critical and perpetually unimpressed.

At first, Nazarenko’s eccentric assignments seem absurd. But before long, Laila grows obsessed with gaining the woman’s approval. Soon Laila is pushing herself far from her comfort zone, discovering the psychedelic highs and perilous lows of nightlife, temporary flings, and instability. Dr. Nazarenko has led Laila to believe that she must choose between perfection and sanity—but rejecting her all-powerful mentor may be the only way for Laila to thrive.



Relatable
This story is a ya contemporary about a writer who loses her mojo. While I typically do not read or enjoy contemporaries (there's a sad lack of magic and dragons, usually) I did enjoy this story. The main character, Laila, is a happy writer until her encouraging teacher is replaced. I found her struggle and discouragement relatable-- at her age, I was a published teen ready to take on the world and write myself into the spotlight I'd always dreamed of. Now, almost ten years later, I find myself struggling to even research my story if ANYthing is off.

Slow-ish
While this story is a story of Laila's fall from writing grace if you will, I found it relatable and . . . boring. Her group of friends acts and talks realistically, and the group dynamics are great. Riley Redgate writes this gorgeously and the anger scenes felt really realistic to me, but it moved a little slow. That said, I finished it in a day.

Not PG
This looks like a sweet PG story-- but it's not. There's a scene where Laila-- ahem-- explores her body for the first time. It's awkward. There's some definite pansexuality, and there's some groping. All trigger warnings, all tough. There's death, and depression, but for me, the previous list was more disturbing. Maybe I'm like Laila in that way.

I did enjoy starting and finishing this book in one afternoon. It was nice to breeze through it. I liked the bi-raciality of the MC, and I liked the family dynamics as well. This is a great book for a quick contemporary read.

4.5 stars/5

“Have you ever had a day that felt like it changed the trajectory of your entire life?”

This is one of the most beautifully crafted and written books I have read this year, if not ever.
I've suddenly lost my ability to write words because I literally just finished this book and it took my breath away.

I did not properly prepare myself for how big of an emotional mess this book would make me, because WOW did a lot of the events in this just completely throw me off guard and make me think about my own relationships with people in my own life.

First off, this is one of the only times I've read a book and felt the need to highlight phrases. There are so many incredible quotes in here that I found myself highlighting something all.the.time.

I did not expect myself to relate to this story as much as I did. I am not someone who is very into creative writing at this time but my god did I relate to Laila on so many levels. In high school, I also had a teacher who guided me entirely through my last 2 years in school. I don't know what I would have done without her, and I am still very close with her. I owe her a lot for what she did for me in that time and what she continues to do for me. Laila's relationship with her creative writing teacher really resonated with me and my experiences, and I loved their relationship to pieces.

The reason I took .5 off was mainly because Laila's friends often frustrated me. They made constant sarcastic comments about how she isn't adventurous, never went out, or wasn't very fun. And if Laila did want to go out, they all acted fake shocked and made a huge deal about it. This is more of a personal opinion rather than one I would expect others to be annoyed about because this is something that happens to me consistently. I, like Laila, am often the subject of the "oh my GOD ___ actually wants to go out?" joke, and I didn't really enjoy reading Laila's friends do this all time.

If you are a writer you will LOVE this book. It is full of the complexities, hardships, and upsides of creative writing and it is all dealt with beautifully. With all the insights into Laila's mind as a writer, she became this incredibly well crafted and well rounded main character, carrying this book all the way to its beautiful end.

This story is an incredible coming of age story and exactly what I wanted to read right now. I would HIGHLY recommend this book, especially to those of you who are writers.

After reading (and really enjoying) Noteworthy earlier this year, I was excited to see that Riley Redgate was coming out with a new story this year.

Similarly to Noteworthy, I really enjoyed Redgate’s writing style. Without being juvenile, it makes me feel like I am in the head of a teenage girl again. This transformation is not easy to achieve, but it definitely adds to the impact of the story.

The main character, Laila, was so relatable. Her insecurity and her anxiety were believable, and something that I think a lot of teenage girls go through. I also appreciated the honest discussion of her sexuality (including using the word pansexual!) and her fears about expressing herself as a sexual being. I haven’t seen a YA book with such frank discussions/descriptions of masturbation, and I think it’s important for especially teenage girls to see. As Laila points out, most of the information girls that age are gettin about topics of expressing sexuality come from peers, the Internet, and/or often flowery fan fiction. Redgate is able to educate without it feeling like an innuendo or a textbook.

The plot did get lost at times, which kept this from being a five star book for me. Still, I have become an even bigger fan of Redgate’s writing and look forward to reading more in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Final Draft

by Riley Redgate

ABRAMS Kids

Amulet Books

Teens & YA

Pub Date 12 Jun 2018

I am reviewing a copy of Final Draft through Amulet Books and Netgalley:

Laila Piedra only enjoys the risks she puts her characters in, in her stories. Her Science-Fi stories are full quests forbidden loves and robots. Her creative writing teacher always told her she had a special talent. Just three months before she is to graduate he dies suddenly and is replaced by a Pulitzer Prize Winning Novelist Nadiya Nazarenkho, who never seems to be impressed by Laila’s writing.

At first Laila finds Nadiya’s assignments to me eccentric but before long she is fighting to win her approval. Laila soon finds herself doing things she could have never imagined doing before.

I give Final Draft four out of five stars!

Happy Reading

"She bowed under the heaviness of the hours she hadn't lived yet"

* * * *
4 / 5

When I finished Final Draft my main emotion was sad. Redgate portrayed depression and grief so realistically, it made me feel a bit empty inside, which is how I know an author has hit the nail on the head. This isn't really a happy book, but it's definitely a great one.

"She wanted to pierce the furthest frontier of her ability"

Laila Piedra is half-Ecuadorian, half-French Canadian, and entirely full of passion for writing. Her creative writing teacher has been her biggest fan, but now he's ill and been replaced by a Pulitzer Prize winner. Nazarenko isn't so amazed with Laila's work, and judging from the excerpts included between the chapters, you can realistically see why. Laila's writing is sort of immature, the product of being eighteen with little life experience. When Nazarenko suggests that this is the reason for her low grades, Laila decides to throw herself into life and all it's experiences, to the detriment of her relationships and her mental health.

Redgate perfectly portrays being eighteen and realising the world is wider than you had ever known. The sense of introspection, of your friends drawing apart, of wanting to put yourself and your work "out there", and realising that maybe you aren't quite as good as you thought you were. It's sad and poignant but also kind of awesome. Laila dives into a world of alcohol and parties and drugs and sexuality and re-navigating her friendships (particularly with her friend Hannah), as well as tackling grief, loss, and mental health problems.

"Her inexperience didn't feel charming or virtuous, like she was some good-girl persona from a movie. It felt furious and heated, humiliating and childish"

Final Draft is my second Redgate novel and maybe I didn't love it quite as much as Noteworthy, but it still had that same flavour. I loved the writing style, poignant and relatively simple. Everything was emotional and also super diverse. I did find all the inclusion of Laila's writing, the development of a show the character's all love, the emails with her old writing teacher, all the fangirling - it was either boring or a bit weird and cringy. But that's my only real complaint here.

Overall, Final Draft is a a touching, thoughtful, and emotional read. It's very introspective and you spend a lot of time in Laila's interesting little head.

I think this was just a poor fit for me, rather than a book with issues/problems (at least insofar as I read)... I found myself unable to engage with Laila (despite usually connecting well with stories about those who don't fit in and especially with books about writing books), and couldn't ever seem to find that something that would bring me fully into her world. I was listlessly flipping pages when I finally just decided to call it what it was: a poor fit.

! I thought Laila was a really interesting and well done character, and her struggles with her identity really rang true. I also really liked her diverse and delightfully nerdy friend group. And it’s an NYC story! The pacing got a little weird at the end, I thought. Suddenly we’re graduating? I also thought Nadiya Nazarenko, in particular, was a bit of a cliche, but she did precipitate Laila’s quest to come out of her shell and everything that happened as a result, so I get why that decision was made. Maybe it also got too much about the romance at the end and less about the writing? I don’t know, I still think this one was pretty special and unique. I think our more writerly teens will really identify with Laila.

This book was beautiful in some ways.
While there was nothing really original, and the tropes in this book are so overdone, there were certain aspects that I loved.
The author portrays depression and grief in a way that I believe is successful, especially in today's society as a high schooler.
I will admit I was bored at first. Like, really bored, to the point where I would skip to the dialogue. There was so much unnecessary information, like backstory and setting, that made my want to read this title falter. But I trudged on, because I was interested in where the story would go. The author's personal writing style is conversational and simple, and that works in a lot of books, but it didn't feel completely successful for this book. I would read the protagonist's own writing and it would take me a second to split it from the rest of the plot, simply because the styles were the same. The emails exchanged between the protagonist and her teacher also felt like they were the same person to me. (Maybe I read way too much into this and it isn't as blatantly obvious as I believe it to be, but I couldn't differentiate anything unless I was told to.)
I think that this could be a book that everyone could enjoy, if they're able to look over the faults.

Laila Piedra lives for the stories she writes, and the only person who reads them is her creative writing teacher. Until he ends up in the hospital and he's replaced by a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who is exceptionally critical and continuously unimpressed. Her strange assignment leads Laila on an obsessive journey to win her praise. 

I have a soft spot for Riley Redgate. Seven Ways We Lie, her debut novel, was the reason I started giving contemporary novels another chance and I really, really enjoyed Final Draft. There was something personal yet universal about it.

Final Draft perfectly tackles the anxiety of writers. Laila has no idea what her future holds but what she is sure of is her stories even if she never lets anyone read them. I related so damn much with part of her. I couldn’t also allow anyone read any of the fanfiction I had written when I was younger, even hiding under a pseudonym so it couldn’t be traced to me. Laila yearns to make something that people will love, the same way she loves her favourite series. But she’s never satisfied, even when she’s told she is doing well. She’s literally her own worst critic. But the introduction of the new teacher means Laila must face a different approach and starts to experience more things in a real-life setting to improve her writing.

The only one real criticism I have, which is practically the same as Seven Ways We Lie, was the lack of responsibility the new teacher had. Though technically she can claim deniability since she never told the students explicitly to do the things they do but suggesting students do things that could potentially put them in danger and or upset someone was a bit irresponsible. But she’s a very ambiguous character, so you’ll understand what she’s trying to do while not fully appreciating the ways she does it.

First Draft is a coming of age story about grief, first love and self-love as Laila learns to manage the fear that holds her back. It’s very relatable, straightforward and entertaining to read. Look out for this when it comes out.

As a writer, this story really resonated with me. The idea of writing and sharing a story is so deeply personal, it can be hard for people to understand. Also, I freaking LOVE Riley Redgate and would read her shopping list if I could.

First of all, this book was something I wasn’t expecting. I liked the author’s writing but I thought it was hard to get into. The author wrote Laila’s story in 3rd person and for a while I didn’t know what I was reading. I thought this was contemporary, not science fiction. Apparently, the author wrote Eden’s story (Laila’s writing) before getting into Laila’s POV. As if Laila had been writing her own science fiction story the whole time. Since I read the e-arc for this book, I couldn’t tell the difference. I hope there would be a change of font once this book gets released. There should be a way to distinguish Laila’s writing from her POV.

Second, I liked the Star Wars reference and I think that Laila’s appreciation for fandoms were relatable (at least that was the case for me). Laila liked binging on tv shows and reading books. She wrote fanfiction (as a hobby) and aspires to write her own novel someday.

Third, this book highlights the difficulties of writing and how the protagonist handles failure. The author didn’t shy away from all kinds of conflict. Laila faced problems but eventually she learned to deal with it (in a healthy way). Hence, I’d recommend this book to aspiring writers especially young adults because good writing doesn’t happen overnight and it’s also important to keep one’s mental health in check.

Fourth, this book is not just about creative writing. It’s a book about family, friendship, grief, coming out, etc. Needless to say, this had been an excellent diverse read.

Fifth, what I didn’t like so much was the pacing of the novel. I noticed how the book was ‘wordy’ and I found it difficult to keep track of the plot (like the time and the setting). One moment you’re reading about Laila’s POV about her problems, then the next you realize that she’s already graduating from high school. The pacing was kind of slow and weird. I found myself skimming the novel because the sea of words in every page all sounds the same to me. In short, it felt like the story dragged at some point. There were too many details when I just wanted to get back into the plot. There was a point when I wanted to say, “I get it…” but it had to be reiterated in another way (in a descriptive way). It’s probably because the protagonist is introspective and I didn’t like the outcome because it was written in a 3rd person POV.

TAKING EVERYTHING INTO CONSIDERATION, THIS BOOK WAS A SOLID READ: 3.5/5

Final Draft could have been SO GOOD.

It had the bones of a great YA book. Laila wants to be a science fiction writer. She works on it all the time with her mentor, a middle-aged creative writing teacher.

When he's suddenly involved in an accident, a famous author takes his place to finish out the semester.

What could be a great book exploring growth, writing, loss and friendships simply turns into another exploration of a girl's exploration with her sexuality including pages of masturbation and her guilt on the subject.

The weird dynamic between the group of unlikely friends is very realistic and the setting interesting as well.

"When had she risked anything, really? She looked back through her life and saw a procession of schoolday routines, chores, conversational chatter. She felt like a witness to the massacre of all her time. For a horrible moment, she wondered if she'd only ever written science fiction to build an escape chute from her life's insistent monotone."


This was one of my most anticipated books, because as a big fan of Redgate’s two previous books, I was hoping this book would live up to the hype!
What you can expect from this book:
-a hella queer cast of characters
-f/f romance following the trope of friends turned to lovers
-a nuanced look at the writers life and the teenage in high school life

We follow Laila, an aspiring writer who’s very focused on her WIP and works hard in her creative writing senior year. She’s the type of writer that is obsessive and expects perfection from herself (as they say: you are your own worst critic) and is described as “sadistically critical and perpetually unimpressed."

Her mentor and creative writing teacher is replaced by the NYT bestselling Pulitzer winning novelist who takes a different teaching approach to the class. Laila loses her one and only beta reader, from which she sought writing advice and life advice, and her life starts to fall apart. This new teacher encourages to get out of her head and experience more things in real life, to be more adventurous out there in the world.

This could be described as a coming-of-age arc in which our main character was wildly relatable to me personally. She identifies herself as pansexual, even though her whole life talk about sex has been repressed and shamed. She is biracial and has a group of her three best friends with a real friendship dynamic that’s messy but also goals. Redgate is amazing at exploring some more deeper topics and dynamics, and it was flawlessly executed.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own**

I loved the story line of this book. A perfectionist nerd who writes sci-fi and does literally nothing else. Unfortunately for Laila she's forced outside her comfort zones for her own sake and her story. She is forced to participate in the world around her, and take chances. Final Draft is a beautifully written story about growing up and the fears that come along with it. As much as I loved this story I feel like it ended right when it really got started. It could be that I just wanted more.

I want to start by saying that this book scores an A+ in diversity. The protagonist is pansexual, multi-racial and fat. The character cast has a variety of races and sexual orientations and while I’ve said before that diversity doesn’t automatically make a book good, it definitely makes a good book better.

This is a book that has a surprising number of twists and turns for a contemporary. In most ways, I am nothing like Laila but I fully identified with her. That yearning to make something that people will love deeply. Losing yourself in fictional worlds so much that your life takes a back seat. I was angry with her, and I ached with her. Redgate’s portrayal of grief is painfully real.

There is so much frank honesty in this book from Laila’s grief to her repressed sexuality that it’s stunning. The way sexuality and sensuality are written is so naked, no pun intended. Laila feels a shame that will be all too familiar to some girls. She struggles with her identity, with her craft, with finding love, and most importantly with loving herself.

There were things I didn’t like quite as much. Partway through the book, it felt like Redgate sort of dropped the ball on Laila’s friend group losing interest in two of the four all together. The ending has a clearly intentional ambiguity about the future of Laila’s writing. While I really loved the romance it seemed to suddenly consume the entirety of the story near the end. It’s not entirely clear is Laila goes back to loving fiction so fiercely or reconciles with her other friends. Even some of the romance is left a little more open-ended than I’d personally like.

Laila’s struggles are easy for everyone, even non-writers to understand. She’s never satisfied with her work, even when she has people telling her it’s brilliant. When someone tells her it’s not, she has a downwards spiral desperately trying to please. She tries to alter herself as a person to improve her craft while her world collapses around her. Redgate’s writing is intensely relatable and, despite the plot’s initial slow build, feels quick paced.

I did thoroughly enjoy this book and empathize with Laila. I just wish her writing had been better incorporated and more intertwined with the story. I wished her writing had mattered more towards the end because I wanted to read about Laila the Writer most of all.

Points for diversity and soul-crushing emotions, but I wanted to real Laila’s final draft. Even if by the end of the story it doesn’t seem to matter at all.

A fun young adult novel that I enjoyed reading! Full of laughter and surprises

This book is a treasure. It’s about Laila’s obsession with artistic perfection, and that’s a feeling I know very well. It’s about how the growth of her writing corresponds to her own personal growth. It’s about being shy and learning to expand horizons and branch out into ‘real life’ in a way that is interesting rather than overdone.

This is my first Riley Redgate book so I don’t have much of a reference for her writing style across other works, but I’ve read some other reviews and someone pointed out that she discusses and dissects a topic in a lot of detail but doesn’t come back to it again. But I did notice it a bit in ‘Final Draft’: it feels a bit like going through a checklist of things that have to be mentioned instead of being woven in seamlessly. But I did like that the discussions were happening, and that they were detailed.

The only ‘fault’ I have with this book is how the show and story Laila is writing was tied in with the rest of the book. I skimmed through a lot of those parts: it was a struggle to pay attention or care (mainly because sci-fi is not a genre that hugely interests me). I don’t like when characters go into massive amounts of detail about plots that aren’t relevant to the main plot, but that’s just a personal preference of mine.

Overall, ‘Final Draft’ is a relatable, interesting, and diverse read for readers and writers alike. I can imagine that Riley Redgate will quickly find herself on my list of favourite authors.

I haven't read any of Redgate's previous novels but I want to after Final Draft! I absolutely loved the representation, with a half-Ecuadorian pansexual protagonist who felt like such a real character, and there were a couple of points during the book where I teared up a little. The netgalley blurb for the story is slightly different to the one on goodreads, giving away a bit of a spoiler that doesn't come until 70% of the way through the book, though that long wait meant I wasn't quite ready despite knowing what would happen. I would've liked to have seen more of Laila's writing and more interaction with Nazarenko, and I'll admit that I found Samuel and Sebastien to be indistinguishable side characters. Towards the end, the story seemed to blur a bit and without spoiling the story, I felt there were some things that should have been dealt with more, considering their importance earlier in the novel. This was a solid YA book with great representation, but it just lacked a more solid final 20% or so of the book.