I passed this one off to our school librarian to read. She is always looking for new books for our high school library Even tho it was a bit young for me I knew what its purpose was and who it would fit.YOUNG ADULT. Well she ordered 30 of them last week.

This book will appeal to the misunderstood 16yo in all of us. I loved the characters and how much Tatum grew in the story. It's a tale of finding yourself. Just fabulous.

Review:
I was surprised by this book many times. At first I thought it would be an angsty “woe is me” book. Then I was like ahhh something horrible is going to happen towards the end and it will ruin my ship. But none of my theories or guesses happened (except for who Shay was).

We start of at the Police station. Tatum, her friend Ashley, and Ashley’s boyfriend are arrested. Why are they arrested? Because Ashley’s bae decided to steal a whole bunch of smartphones. Now Tatum is stuck with a fine and community service even though she knew nothing of what Ashley and her bf had planned on doing that day they went to the mall. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The story progresses as Tate struggles with being under house arrest under her stepmother’s watchful eye. Her stepmother Belen is very harsh on her and her step sister Tilly hardly acknowledges her existence. To make things worse, her father goes out of the country so she is left alone with her step-family. Throughout the entire book, Tate learns that the people closest to you can disappoint you, that making new friends may not be as bad as she thought it would be, that forgiving others is always good even though it takes time for the person you forgive to realize their mistake (Yes, I am talking about Ashley) and that you shouldn’t judge others, especially if you haven’t taken the time to properly get to know them (Her stepmother Belen and her stepsister Tilly).

My favorite character’s were Abby (Her new friend and journalistic wiz) and Blanche (Belen’s mother, Tilly’s grandmother). They both brought humor and the reality check that Tate needed. They were great support systems, yet they didn’t baby Tate. Loved this!

Overall, It Started With Goodbye, is a solid debut. I will keep a lookout for Christina June’s next novel.

(P.S. I didn’t write about the romance/ship in this novel because while it is in the story, I liked that it wasn’t the main point so I shall keep it that way.)

Rating: 4 out of 5

This was a delightful retelling of Cinderella. I read it in one sitting! The updates Christina made on the original were super fun - stepmother puts her on house arrest after a false accusation, girl meets boy at an art show instead of a ball, and girl makes her own luck instead of relying on a godmother! I also really enjoyed that the focus was on her family dynamics instead of on a romance.

Just super charming!

I did enjoy this book to an extent. I liked the different elements to a classic fairy tale, but at the same time other parts felt like i had read them over and over. which also made the story slightly predictable and the lack of plot twists or shock story lines kinda made the book fall a little flat. I would recommend this book to younger viewers, however, due to the straightforwardness of the book and the different look at friendships, family and love

I'm upset! I really wanted to love this book! Since it is now Summer I was in the mood for a cute, fluffy contemporary romance story. Who doesn't when the months are warm? Unfortunately this contemporary did nothing for me. Right off the bat when I started reading I was bored and not invested in the story. I did not like the voice of the heroine of this story, Tatum. The story seemed very slow and I couldn't relate to her (she also seemed very childish and bratty) There was too much sad and not enough good to balance it out and the parents were awful! One thing I did really enjoy about the heroine is that she called people out with the truth whenever the were in the wrong and that she stook up for herself. Overall, I give this book 2.5 stars.

Tatum Elsea is about to spend her entire summer under lockdown with her stepmother (who’s clearly disappointed by her screw-up of a stepdaughter), stepsister (a perfect ballerina who never talks to her), and step-grandmother (the only good thing about this summer). Between court-enforced community service and starting her own graphic design business, Tate makes new friends, flirts with a stranger via her new business, and gets to know her stepsister and stepmother in ways she never thought possible.

Rating: 4.5/5

Diversity: +11

Race/Ethnicity: +4 (Abuela immigrated from Chile), Belén (2nd generation from Chile), Matilda (3rd generation)

Culture: +2 (They reference eating Chilean foods and some of the struggles immigrants have coming to the US)

Gender: +1 (Author), +2 (Tatum), +2 (All about positive female relationships!)



What I liked:

-How the family dynamic changed. Fitting in with a stepfamily isn’t always easy and I love how acutely Tate felt the differences between herself, her stepmother and stepsister. Their problems weren’t magically fixed and everything wasn’t magically okay. They are a family which means that sometimes things go wrong and there will always be some kind of miscommunication. But I love how (Spoiler alert!) they were all honest and supportive of each other in the end.

-The development of the romance is second to Tatum’s journey. The romance is nice; they get to know each other rather than insta-love. BUT her crush is second to her character growth. The romance felt like a nice little aside with cute, funny, and flirty email exchanges where they got to know each other. It was super sweet.

-Abuela and Belén are immigrants that struggled to be successful here. I loved their exchanges because it becomes clear how much their past has affected their present. Especially since Belén is dark-skinned and has an obvious non-English name that complicated her own school days. It’s important to tell the stories of immigrants overcoming adversity and being normal people leading normal lives. We all have similar problems as parents and teenagers and stories where people of color are their own person and not stereotypes for their ethnicity are important.

-I also love how it talks about teenagers making bad choices. Sometimes teenagers don’t realize how bad things can go until they do and sometimes they choose not to think about it. Sometimes they get in trouble for being in the wrong place at the wrong time and yet it can have real consequences. Sometimes your friends will be upset at you for sticking up for yourself. Sometimes it’s okay to break the rules but sometimes it isn’t. Life is made of difficult choices and it’s okay to make some wrong ones along the way. Sometimes they follow you forever and sometimes they can be fixed during a summer.


-Downside: the twist is fairly straightforward and the romance isn’t the main storyline of the book. I personally really liked it because it was straightforward and didn’t push an insta-love romance.


*Thanks to NetGalley for this book in exchange for an honest review*

This will go live on my blog on June 4. Kellyvision.wordpress.com

Tatum is under house arrest after she was deemed the getaway driver in a shoplifting incident (her best friend's boyfriend stole iPhones and gift cards; she had no idea). She and her stepmom have a...we'll go with complicated relationship at best, and this is certainly not an ideal set of circumstances.

This is essentially a modern retelling of Cinderella and it is fantastic. I liked Tatum a lot and watching her grow over the summer made me really happy. Yes, there are nods to the story but it is also its own story.

I flew through the book and loved every second. I knew it would end well (hello, it's a fairy tale!) but it was even better than I'd hoped.

Recommended.

Tatum is a 16-year-old girl who is punished all summer for a crime she didn’t commit. Having to deal with her almost evil step-mother and barely there step-sister, she struggles through the rules cast upon her while trying to enjoy summer, get her community service taken care of and starting a business of her own to pay her fine. With all of this going on she starts a flirtation with a boy that she only knows through her intake form on her business website! Once Tatum realizes that her step-sister isn’t as perfect as she seems, things start to look up and Tatum figures out a bunch of things about herself, her family, and a lot of preconceived notions she once held to be true.

This is a charming YA romance with strong family and friendship elements, along with a good dose of 'coming of age'ness. It has everything a great YA should have - strong characters who draw you in and make you fall for them; snappy dialogue; a romance to make you swoon; and a heroine fnding herself, with help from a few important people. June's writing is witty and relatable, making for a modern-day fairytale that is easy to read and hugely enjoyable.

I enjoyed this book. The author is new to me and I hope to experience more of her work in the future. This book could easily be summed up as a coming of age story for young Tatum who was arrested as an accomplice for shoplifting. Tatum tries to explain to her father that she is innocent, but he is not convinced. He has to leave out of the country for his job for a couple of months and is stuck with her stepmother, who she sometimes refers to as "stepmonster".

The two have a contentious relationship that is constantly tested throughout the story. Tatum is sentenced to community service for the entire summer. Her social life is restricted as her stepmother has put her under "house arrest" until the "debt" is repaid. Tatum also has a stepsister who is cool to her and under her mother's controlling spell. Tatum cannot seem to measure up to the perfection of her stepsister, Tilly.

In her restrictive state, Tatum discovers that there are people who care about her including Tilly's grandmother, who has pearls of wisdom to help Tatum get through current situation. She allows new friendships to evolve and finds that she is not alone.

I don't want to spoil the story, but the journey is well worth it. Tatum was a likeable character and while there were some similarities to the Cinderella tale, Tatum played to her strengths and discovered so much more about herself.

My top two favorite Disney movies/stories are Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella. So yeah, I'm a sucker for any book that has these themes. It always sucks me in. I'm also a cover snob....but this cover didn't really intrigue me all that much.

I'm not so sure I would have described this as a "modern play on Cinderella". There are some similarities....a step mother that our MC, 16 year old Tatum, isn't close to. A grandmother (step) that happens to be extra kind towards Tatum and is made mention that she is "like a fairy godmother" and a stepsister that she isn't close to. But that's about where the similarities end. Dad goes away for the summer with his job and the mean stepmother is in charge of Tatum. Being about as grounded as you can get, she is only allowed to babysit and do her community service hours. She has started a graphic design business at the insistence of a friend, but she keeps this hidden from her stepmother. During one of her step-sister's ballet events at her prestigous private school, she uses the opportunity to leave business cards to try to get more clients. While there she meets a very charming, handsome guy, but never gets his name. In the course of time she starts getting emails from interested students from the school that she advertised her services at, and among them is a cello player whose emails to her verge on the flirtatious side.

I found the first 25% of the book to be rather slow. It really didn't get me interested until about 40% in. The reason is that I most definitely want a love story with my books. It felt like an introduction to a male prospect took longer than it should have in the beginning of the story...and that was an assumption that the first male introduced to our main character would be "the male". But I pushed on to see what more the story would bring. Even at 85% there is still no real romantic storyline. What does develop into one happens within the last 10% of the book.

Due to the amount of time Tatum is emailing, she spends a lenghty portion of brain power contemplating how to sign her emails, which valediction is best. This got annoying to me because it was mentioned EVERY time she sent an email.

The story has a theme more on the lines of what miscommunication and misunderstanding can bring about in relationships. I would recommend this book for middle school and high school age readers. The content and language are both very minor in nature.

Favorite Quotes:
"It's always better to do difficult tasks with friends."

"Do not underestimate the power fear has over our choices."

Yours in music and marshmallows, Seamus.

Language Rating: 1 (light)
Mature Content Rating: 1 (light)
Final Rating: 3 stars

Reviews shared on Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and V's Reads: http://wp.me/p3AKEA-2du

Sixteen-year-old Tatum Elsea is bracing for the worst summer of her life. After being falsely accused of a crime, she’s stuck under stepmother-imposed house arrest and her BFF’s gone ghost. Tatum fills her newfound free time with community service by day and working at her covert graphic design business at night (which includes trading emails with a cute cello-playing client).

When Tatum discovers she’s not the only one in the house keeping secrets, she finds she has the chance to make amends with her family and friends. Equipped with a new perspective, and assisted by her feisty step-abuela-slash-fairy-godmother, Tatum is ready to start fresh and maybe even get her happy ending along the way.

<strong>My Review:</strong>
Tatum Elsea is a sixteen y/o girl caught in a bad situation. Her rebellious bestie was dating bad boy--and she's just been charged as an accessory to grand larceny when the idiot steals four iPhones from a store and jumps into Tatum's car.

Tatum's parents are supremely disappointed, not that she's ever felt like anything less than a disappointment to her perfect stepmother. Tatum's friend is furious, and missing-in-action after her fed-up father ships her off to a boarding school. Tatum's charges are dropped in exchange for 100 hours of community service and a $500 fine, which she has to pay herself. And, she's essentially under house arrest for the entire summer. Sure, her step-sister Tilly is home, but they hardly ever speak. Tilly's gifted, and a dancer at an elite high school for the arts--that disappointing Tatum didn't gain acceptance into. Her beloved father is away on a diplomatic mission to Africa, too, so it's just Tatum, Tilly, the step-monster and Blanche, her step-grandma. Blanche is a free-spirited gal, though, and proves to be one speck of happiness in an ocean of frustration, as far as Tatum's concerned.

This is a bittersweet story that ends up being really awesome. The beginning is all about separation--Tatum's support networks all disappear--but she cobbles together new ones, and forges better connections within her world as a result. Tatum's got a lot of trouble in front of her, and it's not exactly all her fault. I could really sympathize with her anger over the way her parents treat her. It's not as if she planned the arrest; she was being a friend to her bestie, and had no idea the boyfriend was a thief. And, I also thought their treatment of her was overly harsh. As an outsider to Tatum's life, the narrative is structured to throw her stepmother into the harshest light possible, which is misleading. The lack of communication was frustrating, for me as a reader and mother. I can't imagine being so high-handed and never explaining why. Sorry. That said, I liked how Tatum found constructive ways to survive her punishment, and earn her fine payment. She's a great girl who's in need of a hug, probably several everyday. Her life, though it isn't terrible, hasn't been easy wither, and she could have used some counseling at some point. Or, hey, a human conversation every now and again. I get that her step-mom had issues, but be an adult, for goodness sake. Even her daughter was terrified of her critique.

In the midst of this summer, Tatum recognizes that she's making friendships--and perhaps more--with the few people with whom she's interacted this summer, both in community service, and her new business venture. It's sweet seeing Tatum vindicated in the end, with her bestie making all the right moves better late than never. And, a little romance, too. Tatum's summer that started with goodbye ends up ending with bliss. Sweet, innocent and having strong themes of making it through hardship while dealing with overbearing parents, this book will appeal to most YA readers. I read a copy via NetGalley.

I wasn't exactly thrilled with this one. It's just so expected. Nothing new under the sun. On the positive side, Tatum doesn't claim that she doesn't deserve punishment. She accepts her legal trouble without question. It;s only the punishment from her parents that she finds unfair. Apparently, they have no reason to punish her . Now all of this is clearly so she can learn a lesson about assumptions, so there is some redemption.

Highly recommended for a younger teen/middle grade audience. A bit predictable, but genuinely heartfelt and uplifting.

This book was not what I expected but in a good way. I really feel for Tatum, and many of the other characters to, because you felt how unfair her parents were being in not listening to her but at the same time you also understood her parents' worry that she had been hanging around with a dangerous criminal. I loved how none of the characters were perfect but were simply trying to do the best they could, including Belen who was a character I didn't expect to feel for. She made Tatum feel inadequate but it became more and more obvious as the story went on that Belen was trying to be the best parent she could be and to her that was treating the girls the same, despite them being very different people. I loved how Tatum's relationships developed, not only with her family and the boy she liked but with her old friend and her new friends at the same time and how the focus on the story was on them.

The reason I gave this four stars instead of five was because I felt like it was just a little too easy at the end. Everything wrapped up a little too nicely, like all the family was bonded together, Tatum got her dream guy, her best friend apologised and they came back together. I liked it but it felt a little too squeaky clean at the end. And while I liked Blanche, I definitely didn't think she was all that great when it came down to it. I don't think the book would have been massively affected if Blanche had been removed as a character, except for missing out on some of Belen's backstory. Still, it was an enjoyable read.

When a shopping trip with her best friend and best friend’s boyfriend ends in an arrest for shoplifting, Tatum tries to convince her parents of her innocence. But instead of understanding that Tatum did nothing wrong, that it was all the creepy boyfriend’s fault, Tatum’s dad leaves her under the strict rule of her stepmother. Yay for summer house arrest.

As part of her punishment, Tatum works community service, where a friend challenges her to start her own business doing graphic design. As Tatum explores the possibility, she meets a charming boy looking for a website, and learns she and her stepsister may have something in common after all.

I liked spunky Tatum and the charming and mysterious boy she communicates with via email. The way the relationship unfolded drew me even further into the story. I liked that she ends up with a community of friends around her. I also liked the exploration of the relationship between Tatum and her stepmother. As a member of a blended family, I felt like that relationship read pretty true. Though she eventually comes to respect her stepmom, Tatum is pretty rude at different points in the story. She does regret her behavior later.

I thought it was cool to feature a character with interest in graphic design, especially one as entrepreneurial as Tatum. It added an interesting flavor to the story. Overall, this is a clean book and a light read. Fans of A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody will appreciate Tatum’s quirkiness and wild attempts to fix things. The story might also appeal to readers who enjoyed That’s Not Hay in My Hair by Juliette Turner.

Sixteen year old Tatum is sure that this is going to be the worst summer of her life, stuck on house-arrest after being falsely accused of a crime (again). All she wanted was an afternoon out with her best friend, Ashlyn. Who knew that Ashlyn's delinquent boyfriend would come along and ruin it for everyone? Now Tatum's in trouble and stuck at home with her untrusting stepmonster all summer. Good thing her sympathetic and feisty abuela is coming in town for the summer to "help keep an eye on her".

What to do with all this newfound free time when she's not performing community service cutting down invasive plants in the heat? How about trading emails with a cute client of her covert graphic design business? With an ocean between them, it seems like the perfect opportunity to throw caution to the wind and let him know who she really is without fear of rejection. But over the course of the summer, Tatum will learn that sometimes going after what you want means breaking all the rules. How do you balance going after what you want with mending relationships and making other people happy?

This was a fantastic debut. I really loved this book and it is a true summer YA book. It's a quick read, the characters are great and well-fleshed out, and the story is very captivating. I would absolutely recommend this book and would love to read anything else written by this author.

It Started with Goodbye is CUTE! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I love that its a modern take on the Cinderella fairy tale. However, I felt like it was lacking a bit in terms of depth.

Don't get me wrong, this is a wonderful story that has a some awesome characters. WHO HAVE FUN HOBBIES. AND A CUTE SHIP. I just kept expecting there to be some greater level of meaning at some point, but there wasn't. That's okay, though. Here's a list of the things I loved about It Started with Goodbye:

The Hobbies!

Tatum, our main character, is a graphic designer! How awesome is that?! I feel like most books that I read have characters with pretty typical hobbies (like journaling, writing, photography). Which isn't bad, but it gets repetitive. So the hobbies in It Started with Goodbye were refreshing and exciting. Tatum's stepsister, Tilly, (who is NOT ugly or evil, by the way) loves dancing. And June actually goes into detail at times to give us some insight into that aspect of her life. And the cute boy who Tatum is emailing? He's a musician!

Family Dynamics!

OKAY! So first let me say that Tatum's parents are SUPER annoying throughout 75% of the book. But they mean well, so we can forgive them. Maybe it's just me and my personal experiences, but I felt like her parents were unrealistically strict and completely misunderstood the situation that Tatum was in.

I mean, sure, Tatum could have been in much worse danger because she allowed her best friend to bring her sketchy boyfriend along with them, but they were punishing Tatum for what could've happened instead of what actually happened. Which is really unfair. They could have found alternative ways to teach her that lesson. Besides, we as readers know that Tatum understands the lesson and acknowledges what she did wrong. Which made her parents' reactions so much more annoying. They all just needed to communicate better.

BUT, as the book comes to its turning point Tatum becomes closer to her stepsister and step-grandmother. And she begins to understand and value her stepmother's decisions as ones that are well-intended, although sometimes unbearable. It Started with Goodbye really highlights the importance of understanding, communicating, and appreciating your family, no matter what. I loved that.

Blanche!
Tatum's Step-Grandmother loves the Golden Girls!

Blanche is the fairy godmother in this Cinderella modernization, but she deserved MUCH more of a role than she got, I think. She was absolutely the best character in the book, yet I felt like she a bit underdeveloped as a character. Like she was a plot device to get Tatum's story where it needed to go. But it didn't feel completely authentic.

However, the parts we do get with Blanche are a thousand times better simply because she's in it. She has sass, but, like, classy sass. If that's a thing.

Overall?

This book is a wonderful take on the Cinderella story, but it's a bit more than just a retelling, too. Some parts of the story felt lacking (particularly Blanche's development) and the plot felt a bit unrealistic at times. But it is a fairy tale spin, so how realistic should it be?

The relationships in this book are lovely and will make you smile. This is a cute, fast summer read that really emphasizes the importance of friends and family!

★★★★