Hello everyone! My name is Jan and welcome back to another blog post ◝(ᵔᵕᵔ)◜ ♥
I’m trying to update on my blog and my channel more so pls keep an eye out for more content from I’m working on it I promise T_T
Today I am back with another ARC review! If you didn’t know I am a part of Penguin Teen Influencers Program and I am so excited to share my reviews on these upcoming books! Please keep an eye out for reading vlogs and further ARC reviews for more content like this!
Without further ado, let’s get on with the review.
Title: hello (from here)
Author(s): Chandler Baker & Wesley King
Rating: ☆☆☆
Release Date: May 11, 2021
Synopsis
A witty and thought-provoking YA love story set during the COVID-19 quarantine, written by two NYT bestselling authors, with shades of Five Feet Apart and Anna and the French Kiss .
Maxine and Jonah bump into each other in the canned goods aisle of the grocery store just as the state of California is going into lockdown, when everything changes completely. Could there be a worse time to meet? Max’s part-time job at a supermarket is about to transform into a hellish gauntlet. Jonah’s preexisting anxiety is about to become an epic daily struggle. As Max, Jonah, and their friends live together but apart through hijinks, humanity, and heartbreak, Hello (From Here) cuts across urgent matters much bigger than a teenage crush. Differences of class, privilege, mental health, and sacrifice are thrown into stark relief by the profound and personal stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic. As thoughtful, probing, and informed as it is buoyant, romantic, and funny, Hello (From Here) looks at the first two months of the quarantine and adds falling hopelessly in love to the mess.
Thank you Netgalley and PenguinTeen for giving me an ARC copy in exchange for a review!
This book made me somewhat sentimental about when we were on the verge of the pandemic. The stocking of toilet paper, the way everyone was confused with no idea what to do or where to begin because we’ve never been faced with such a situation like the COVID-19 pandemic before. Reading this made me actually… nostalgic? For those times. When the world was fighting for toilet paper, when people were rushing home from their study abroad trip in Europe, when people were making tiktoks after tiktoks from boredom and making dalgona coffee and just being… home. This book kind of made me… miss all of that.
I feel like hello (from here) was a different concept and very different from every contemporary I’ve read before since it not only reflected a very serious pandemic, but it touched upon what we went through when COVID-19 was on the very tip of the ice berg and we didn’t know what to do.
I did like the characters, I found them endearing and actually very relatable. I think we could see a lot of ourselves in Jonah and how he dealt with his constant anxiety and how it peaked over these unknown times. I liked Maxine as well and I liked how very… real her relationship was with her family and her friends, how they talked over Zoom and how she still had to work with her job as a groceries attendant.
The plot was nice and all but it seemed to lack some sort… substance? It seemed very… empty, I guess you could say. Half of it was plot, and half of it was these two teens trying to build a kind of romance over Zoom which I must say was very different and I liked the concept a lot but I think the way it was executed was not for me.
However, I do think that now with everyone’s gotten to learn to live during the pandemic and how we’re all very used to it, it would make everyone nostalgic for those times when we were just beginning with COVID-19. I think that teens would enjoy this book, especially when COVID-19 is over, future teens can get a glimpse of what we lived like during those times :))
That’s all for my review! Thank you so much for stopping by and I promise to upload more content in the future ❤
Stay safe and stay healthy! I appreciate you all 😀 ❤
Jan
januisance 