Lab Partners | NetGalley Review #4

Hello, readers. We’re back with another post in English. Today we’ll be talking about Lab Partners, an E-ARC I’ve requested and been sent from Netgalley. Genre: YA contemporary that deals with LGBTQIA+ themes.





I had to take some time off of NetGalley unfortunately because the device I usually send the ARCs to decided to stop working, but here I am. I’m back a little disappointed because apparently I can’t read neither mangas or comics, nor graphic novels, but my e-reader is willing to tolerate at least a decent format for the novels. You can’t have everything in life, they say.

So today we’ll be talking about Lab Partners, a novel by Mora Montgomery that will be hitting the shelves on March the 10^th 2020.

This book is about Elliot who has been reassigned, pretty much like the rest of his classmates, to a new laboratory partner in his Advanced Chemistry class. He’s kind of afraid to get to know this new guy, Jordan, because Elliot has been bullied ever since he can remember. He doesn’t want his last months in school to be more hell-ish than what they are now, but Jordan turns out to be totally different from what Elliot expected.
If from one perspective Jordan is the classic guy who’s good at everything, who aces classes even if he just transferred from another school, and is friendly with everyone, he doesn’t look like he enjoys the company of those who are more popular. Actually, Jordan intent seems to be befriending Elliot despite the fact that it could lead him so the so-called social suicide, but Elliot it’s okay with his intentions even if at first the mere idea confuses him.
Weeks pass by and they grow closer. Jordan tries to talk some sense into Elliot regarding the bullying but Elliot shuts him down because he’s sure he can handle it. He thinks he can handle pretty much everything life throws at him until Jordan’s kiss. When Jordan kisses him unexpectedly, Elliot’s world tilts a little and he finds himself in need of facing not only his feelings, his sexuality and the position that kiss puts him into, but Jordan ones as well.

This book comes from Wattpad, a platform where I myself write some stories, occasionally. It’s obvious from the very beginning that it was born as a fanfiction, because the writing style is very simplistic and somehow empty. It’s full of description regarding actions and repetitive thoughts that affect the characters and doesn’t really stick out nor leave anything to the reader whilst they read. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, unless you’re me and you’re very fussy.
Objectively speaking I think that besides the fact that the story is a bit rushed and it felt like the author wanted to speed things up in fear of losing he reader’s attention and involvement, it’s still a solid story. There isn’t much in terms of twists and turns, it’s fairly predictable and almost obvious where it’s going to be pretty much from the moment Jordan and Elliot meet, but it’s not bad. I enjoyed reading it, it was the kind of book with no pretenses that you read in between slumps or books that talk about heavy topics. It’s somehow refreshing and more mature in regard of the syntactic structure of the story than many debut novel I’ve happened to read.
I also liked the fact that Mora spends time and gives voice to a character when it comes to discuss Elliot’s sexuality, the fluidity of it and the different “labels” on the spectrum, explaining widely which means what. I found it a little confusing at first, I have to admit, and maybe a little rushed but I still quite liked the idea and the attempt, as I feel like it’s very important to talk about this nowadays and she's been the first one I've read that did something like this. You can never talk enough about sexuality and the aspects of it that are just recently emerging and coming to consciousness. Maybe it would've benefited a bit of professionalism in order to make it a little clearer.
If on one side it’s a fairly entertaining story, I have to say that I did not enjoy the characters at all… I feel so bad and I questioned myself about this point specifically. I guess I’ve outgrown the clichés bit of this kind of books, so I don’t really identify with the main protagonist nor with the side characters Mora Montgomery writes about, but it’s me and only me. Objectively speaking they’re relatable for some aspects to many, many, many teens out there but as I don’t belong to that category anymore reading the book didn’t give me particularly strong feelings and emotions.
I have to point out one thing though: I have to reckon that I found Jordan a little pushy towards Elliot. It felt, above all on the ending, that Elliot was doing whatever he did only to please Jordan and only driven by his charisma, rather than following his own instinct and taking things as slowly and carefully as Elliot felt. Plus one thing I really despised and hated was the sort of revenge Elliot takes after the bullies went a little too far. Maybe the author didn't realize it, maybe it was intentional, maybe she thought of making it right at some point afterwards, but doing what he asked Holiday to do, Elliot lowered himself to their level and I stopped feeling any kind of compassion towards him and the incidents he's been through throughout the story. That was just bad, it was unnecessary and very poorly developed. It gave the worse message and the worse lesson to the reader and I really do hope someone will look into it and make it right, at some point. This being a debut novel and a first published story doesn't have to allow the writers to be this mean.

I will say one last thing about clichés and then I’ll write the conclusion to this review which is positive, after all. I won’t give the book a rating based on my personal likeness of it, otherwise it would be a disaster. I chose to rate it according to the mere facts, objective ones, so that readers can choose whether to pick it up or not based purely on the facts themselves. After all, who wants to hear thoughts over a book from someone who’s an old soul inside and outside and doesn’t relate much to teens' world anymore? :’D
Clichés wise, I am strongly against them. Objective fact is that most of the times clichés are not well developed. The authors puts them in hoping to find some readers who can identify deeply with their characters and the misadventures they live, but unfortunately it doesn’t always work like that. Most of the times clichés turn the events into something less realistic and more extreme than reality would be, hence the struggle for the reader to identify. A lot of times there are too many of them, and this will make the book look particularly unrealistic and it will make it impossible to empathize with the protagonists.
In this book specifically clichés were abundant, starting from the absent family who doesn’t really care about the kids, to the bullying because of awful backgrounds. The mediocrity of the main character’s performances if compared to all the others, the outcast who dresses as a punk and is ready to fight for those who care about. It’s too much. People in life have to deal with many more important issues than this common ones, and it doesn’t matter how strong these kind of things happen every day, because the representation is not good enough to report and fight it. To have an awful family background, to be lonely doesn’t justify bullying nor the acceptance of the act. Don’t hide behind the “I let them bully me so they won’t bully the others,” don’t play the hero because in real life this never happens. And don’t focus on clichés that everyone can write about, when you’re telling your own story. Be creative, explore, study the topics and find an alternative yet impressive and new way of reporting social issues and common problems and struggles. The more mature, the better. It will also help people grow up, it will help the readers understand that there’s no magic formula, but just their inner strength when it comes to fight for their own well-being.
Eradicating the clichés, being creative and informative at the same time won’t destroy nor belittle your story and neither your characters, remember.

And with this all said, I will end this review saying that this book objectively deserves 3 out of 5 stars, but for my personal tastes it didn’t really work for all the many reasons I listed some paragraphs ago, I would rate it 2.5 out of 5 stars.
I still quite enjoyed reading it, it was the kind of story I needed in this particular moment of my life, but unfortunately it lacked of the connection with the characters, it was full of the clichés I tend to dislike and despise, and it was a very distant story from what is my personal experience so I couldn’t empathize as I have liked to. It’s still a good debut, though, considering that the plotline is strong and follows an acceptable timeline and the incidents happen following a criteria. So in the end it’s really down to you, reader. Will you read this little gem when it will be on the shelves or not?

 

Sam.