nina kenwood | Lost in a Good Book

It Sounded Better in My Head by Nina Kenwood

Published: 07 April 2020 (print)/4 Jan 2023 (audio)
Publisher: Flatiron Books/Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd
Pages: 272/7 hrs and 19 mins
Narrator: Maddy Withington
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance
★ ★ ★ – 3.5 Stars

When her parents announce their impending divorce, Natalie can’t understand why no one is fighting, or at least mildly upset. Then Zach and Lucy, her two best friends, hook up, leaving her feeling slightly miffed and decidedly awkward. She’d always imagined she would end up with Zach one day―in the version of her life that played out like a TV show, with just the right amount of banter, pining, and meaningful looks. Now everything has changed, and nothing is quite making sense. Until an unexpected romance comes along and shakes things up even further.

I always feel a bit bad when I finish a book and my opinion is it was ‘fine’. Perfectly average, decent story and good. Unremarkable but good. Why is that a bad thing? It’s a good book, didn’t need to be amazing or the best thing I’ve ever read. It wasn’t bad. I didn’t hate it. I enjoyed it. Yet I still feel a bit guilty.

There were of course reasons why it’s an average rated book not a highly rated book. In terms of the romance, I felt it comes from nowhere. We aren’t given anything to base it on, Natalie even mentions she’s barely even spoken to Zach’s brother, they hardly acknowledge one another, so the fact he suddenly takes an interest and she reciprocates feelings was a stretch. Also, discovering Alex was only 19 made me feel better, I was thinking he was 20 or 21 so him suddenly having an out of blue interest in Natalie once she’d turned 18 felt weird but we’re all good on that front.

Natalie talks about her body a lot, as well the accompanying anxieties. Because it’s such a key point of the story, I found it hard to believe that someone who has never kissed anyone, has incredible body issues, and spends most of the book talking about her skin insecurities, would let a first kiss go on for as long as it does and be that physically intimate. There are some references down the track about her worries so Kenwood does remember she’s subconscious about it.

There is a good acknowledgment and criticism of societal expectations and people needing a boyfriend (and why not a girlfriend etc) and other out of date ideas which I enjoyed. There are fleeting moments of LGBTQIA+ support but then quickly falls back into the idea that kissing someone is super important and a key experience people need to have around her age. For every step forward there were as many steps back.

One thing that was good was the reminder that even at 18 and 19 these are still teenagers despite being legal adults. There are short tempers, emotional misunderstandings because people are so in their heads, and the nervous and anxious feelings of being around “real adults” and being interrogated can still shrink you down.

Withington is a good narrator. I was never taken out of the story and her expression of the characters was great. Kenwood keeps us in Natalie’s head a lot but we do get to explore the other characters well enough. The unexpected divorce doesn’t come into play as much as you’d think and I did enjoy Natalie’s thought trails as she plans ahead about what she think will happen and is sixteen steps ahead with what she’ll do before anything has even happened. That was fun.

Overall it was…perfectly fine. A good book, decent story. It was different with a main character who had a different set of body issues to contend with, and different anxieties, but Kenwood balances it well so it doesn’t make her intolerable to the reader while still making us understand how debilitating these issues can be.

You can purchase It Sounded Better in My Head via the following

QBD | Dymocks

Wordery | Blackwell’s | Angus and Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust | Audible

Book Bingo 2024

A few days ago as I went to write my book bingo wrap up I realised, despite announcing it to the world in January, I never actually ended up making it. Which is a shame because it is one of my favourite challenges, not only to do but to create. Who knows what happened to distract me. But now we are here, and I made one quickly a few days ago to keep my goals alive.

In an effort not to sway my results I pulled random ones from the past bingos I have made, as well as a few online ones. I picked things I knew I hadn’t selected before and some classics because there’s so much variety in a simple bingo prompt sometimes you always get something delightful.

Then the joy came from going through the 75 or so books I had read this year and seeing if any matched. I rarely keep up with bingo anymore through the year, I make it and see come December if I made a bingo. I like this approach because I do often hit my targets, but occasionally when I pick an out there prompt like poetry or something that isn’t usually in my reading wheelhouse I feel bad and try and get a last minute read it.

Looking back at my reading there are a lot I read back in January or March that feel like a lifetime ago, a good feeling since it felt the year flew by. I read a lot of young adult, and a few picture books, though not as many as usual. I balanced out my foreign reads with local, and attempted to diversify my shelf more in terms of genre, content, and character to mixed appreciation.

I finished series, started new series, and lots of Aussie reads though those #LoveOzYA ones are still hard ones to hit when you don’t have time to read a physical book. I did some power reads in the last few days, still sought out audios instead of the three books that are currently in front of me that are all on average 200 pages (why is that???). Maybe there will be a NYE miracle. The issue is reading takes time, even the shortest audiobook on 1.5x speed takes hours to read, but it won’t stop a mad attempt to finish books to tick off an arbitrary goal I set for myself.

So it’s been a weird bingo this year, technically made and completed in the span of a few days but an honest attempt was done. I am calling this a loose definition of a win. One because yes I did make a lot of full lines, but yes I did make this last minute and I feel making and completing a bingo in a week might not be in the spirit of the challenge. I have never been a fan of using one book for multiple prompts, and I read way more than 25 books a year so I have had choice on my side. Plus with some of my categories being broad or typical reads I am usually in with a good shot of a line or two being completed by years end.

Here’s to 2025 being a better organised bingo year. I may even make one up now while the guilt is still fresh. But for now here is the breakdown of my reading achievements. I will link those with reviews when they go up.