*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.
Title: Your Dream For Me
Author: Alison Schaffir
Genre: Young Adult Romance
Rating: ★★
Your Dream For Me
tells the story of seventeen-year-old Scarlett who dreams of becoming a
renowned fashion designer. One day, whilst exploring the costume room of her school’s
drama department, she meets Nathaniel, the new kid at school who is a very
talented actor, and instantly falls for him. With Nathaniel’s encouragement she
decides to get involved back-stage at the school’s play to learn more about
theatre costuming and get to spend more time with Nathaniel. But Nathaniel’s
scene partner Tina is trying to steal him away from Scarlett and a distressing
event causes her best friend Macie – and then Nathaniel – to distance themselves
from her.
I’ll preface the
review by saying that I wanted to love the book. As a big theatre fan I really
liked the idea of a theatre-based romance between someone working on-stage and
someone working off-stage but unfortunately it just wasn’t executed well and
fell really flat for me. Although Your Dream For Me is a YA novel, it largely
felt more suitable for a younger audience, potentially as a transitional read
between the middle grade and YA genres. Largely I think this is down to the characters
as not only do they lack any real depth and have very little character development
during the story but they also really lack maturity. Our protagonist Scarlett had a
very immature voice which would have been more fitting in a 13/14 year old
character than a 17 year old. She had very dramatic spiralling reactions to
things that could have been resolved through simple communication and honestly
just didn’t seem mature enough to have a relationship, despite the romance
being a major plot point.
Unfortunately,
not only is Scarlett immature but she is also quite unlikeable. She felt very
self-centred and naïve and I struggled to understand why the other characters
thought she was so superior to everyone else. Scarlett is also very
disillusioned about the world around her as although she has big ambitions
of going to a world-renowned fashion school to train as a fashion designer, she
doesn’t seem to be doing anything to work towards it. She seemed very disillusioned
that a good GPA, fashionable dress sense and a Saturday job in a clothes shop
would give her any chance of getting in to such a prestigious school when she
lacked basic fashion designing skills such as sewing. On a similar note, Scarlett
also seems to really lack any kind of drive. She is desperate for a sewing
machine but the second she gets one she decides it’s too hard to learn and she’ll
have to wait until someone else teaches her. You’d expect a character with such
high ambition to have the drive to teach herself through books or YouTube tutorials
but this just isn’t the case. And then we’re then expected to believe that she
could fashion a high-quality prom dress in a mere matter of weeks, after a
single sewing lesson? Even the most gifted of dressmakers would have struggled
with that.
The character of Nathaniel
did charm me from his very first appearance and I think his character is one of
the highlights of the story, which makes it disappointing that we see so little
of him despite him being the main love interest. I also liked the character of
Gavin and thought it a shame that we saw so little of him, particularly as he
seemed to be only used as a sounding board by Scarlett rather than as the good
friend he had the potential to be.
I did find the
speed that Scarlett fell for Nathaniel very unrealistic and superficial as she
is practically besotted with the boy after a mere 5 minute interaction where
they don’t even swap names let alone any real details about each other. Fans of
the insta-love trope might enjoy it for this reason but it just wasn’t for me. I
didn’t buy into their chemistry and although I appreciate that teenage crushes
can be quite intense, this just seemed beyond anything you’d actually see in
real life and therefore made it difficult to root for the relationship.
The conflict
which leads to Nathaniel ghosting Scarlett was a little bit ridiculous (although
no more ridiculous than Scarlett’s responses to it) and I struggled with the
instant-reprieve the main antagonist Tina had after simply apologising. It made
the drama feel even more superficial and I would have considered not finishing
the book had it not been so close to the end. The ending of the story is incredibly
frustrating and I think the less said about it the better but overall I think
it’s testament to the lack of maturity we see in Scarlett.
I am keen to highlight
some of the strengths of the book through and I think the representation of a
strong female friendship through Scarlett and Macie is one of them. But
unfortunately this doesn’t last the duration of the story as they start to
clash with each other after Macie is sexually assaulted (which is a major potential
trigger all prospective readers need to be aware of). Scarlett is initially very
supportive of her friend but I grew very quickly frustrated by Scarlett’s lack
of empathy to how the trauma of the assault was affecting her friend. In one of
the chapters, she starts going on about how everyone is leaving her and it’s
all very woe is me, completely disregarding how her friend is feeling and why she
might be distancing herself away. This all further demonstrated a real lack of
maturity in Scarlett which only made her even more unlikeable.
I did really like
Macie and I thought the exploration of Macie’s assault and the effect it had on
her was really interesting and well executed. So much so, that I think the
character was wasted as a supporting character and would have made a much more
interesting protagonist than Scarlett. I would have loved a narrative focused
on Macie and how she begins to recover from the trauma of the assault, with a
potential friends to lovers romance between her and Liam. Overall, I think that
would have made a much stronger story than what we got from Scarlett and
Nathaniel.
Overall, I think
Your Dream For Me would be a good read for a younger YA audience who may be oblivious
to the issues with characterisation and plot and simply be able to enjoy it as
a cute high school romance.
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