NIGHT OWLS BY JENN BENNETT // spoiler-free book review: lowkey the most absurd YA romance i’ve ever read but its absolutely wonderful and you 100% need it in your life!!!

This last year has been really great for me tbh, look at me catching up on all of my fave authors. And you should feel very blessed that I’m shoving it down your throats. At least I’m not recommending boring books amirite,,,

Okay enough yapping now, into the review!!!

Title: Night Owls [or The Anatomical Shape of a Heart]
Author: Jenn Bennett
Page count: 304
Date published: 3 November 2015
Genre: YA contemporary romance

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Synopsis:

Beatrix Adams knows exactly how she’s spending the summer before her senior year. Determined to follow in Da Vinci’s footsteps, she’s ready to tackle the one thing that will give her an advantage in a museum-sponsored scholarship contest: drawing actual cadavers. But when she tries to sneak her way into the hospital’s Willed Body program and misses the last metro train home, she meets a boy who turns her summer plans upside down.

Jack is charming, wildly attractive, and possibly one of San Francisco’s most notorious graffiti artists. On midnight buses and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who Jack really is—and tries to uncover what he’s hiding that leaves him so wounded. But will these secrets come back to haunt him? Or will the skeletons in her family’s closet tear them apart?

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STAR RATING: (5 out of 5 stars)

Gosh dang it Jenn, what typa crack do you put in these? Or is it just magic fingers? The secrets need to be spilled or else they’re sending me to the psych ward for screaming all the time.

I have said this before but I will say it a million times over, Jenn Bennett knows how to write a YA contemporary and she knows how to do it RIGHT! Like this book was published 10 years ago but here I am still being in love with these freaks.

I do fear you need at least some warning before I get into this book. You can’t go into this thinking its some crazy spin on the YA romance novel because it’s not. When I say there are freaks, please allow me to introduce our corpse-drawing FMC and graffiti artist born from a rich family MMC. I’m shocked we don’t have an adaptation yet in all honesty (and I say this as very positively btw, don’t confuse me for a hater pls sir).

Now that we’re on the same page, yes I loved Bex and Jack, what about it? I was a quirky teenager too okay, go judge us elsewhere. But also, as always, Jenn manages to bring a level of real authenticity to her characters and though these two were complete oddballs, they were funny and wonderful and beautifully complex.

Do I even need to bring up the sex positivity representation? At this point, I should stick something on my forehead about it. And please let’s not make a toilet joke about that. I know my readers are just as freaky as the delinquent characters in this book.

I feel like a broken record at this point, but in case you were wondering, yes I have visited San Francisco. In fact, I was transported to the exact hospital Bex was drawing at. Absolutely wild experience meeting her in person actually. Saw her making out with some guy in back. Sorry, got side-tracked there… this author is mildly okay at painting a setting *shrugs*

Have I said enough about this book (and author) yet? I could go on for days, but instead I’ll just hold this gorgeous book above my head like a boom box and tell you its a great strangers to lovers romance about finding love in even the darkest of places. It also has gorgeous mental health representation so just go read it right now!!!!

 “You’re like ten prismacolors all at once.”

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“Feeling alive is always worth the risk.”

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“He was kissing me like we were both on fire and he was trying to put the flames out, and I kissed him back like an arsonist with a pocketful of matches.”

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“I don’t want my mistakes to affect everyone else in the room,” I said after a moment. “I want to keep to myself and do as little damage as possible.”

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“Too weird for jocks, and not weird enough for hipsters, I was neither freak nor geek, and that left me stranded in no-man’s-land.”

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“Hey, Bex?” Jack said as he grated. “Just so we’re clear, if we were alone, I’d probably kiss you right now.”
I gave him a swift glance as the hallway laughter made its way back to the kitchen. “Just so we’re clear, I’d probably let you.”

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“This was the night bus, not a Journey song. Two strangers were not on a midnight train going anywhere. I was going home, and he was probably going to knock over a liquor store.”

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“Doing nothing can cause as much damage as doing something.”

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“I like the way bones and skin move, and I like seeing how all of the chambers of the heart fit together.”

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“But you know, sometimes people smile when they’re sad. And sometimes girls who look sad are really smiling”

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“I think I’ve been waiting for you all my life.”

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HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? WHAT DID YOU THINK? HAVE YOU READ ANY OF THIS AUTHOR’S BOOKS? WHICH IS YOUR FAVOURITE? I’D LOVE TO KNOW!