Welcome back to Well Read Book Review, for the month of March, there is one book that was requested to be reviewed by the author himself!
“Party School” by Jon Hart
Dylan Mills is a likeable underachiever. He’s a high school senior, he dropped out of glee club, and he’s a fifth string hockey goalie. All Dylan really cares about is his high school girlfriend, Rosemary. Rosemary is everything to Dylan, she’s the one thing in his life he’s done right. Unfortunately, unlike Dylan, Rosemary isn’t going to Party School, a small-town college known for being rambunctious and lively. When their freshman year begins, Rosemary tells Dylan she’d like to see other people, and she ends up seeing someone else. After his heartbreak, Dylan decides to join a motorcycle gang, despite not having his license. Everything is a blur of wild nights. When a cheating scandal sends Rosemary running back to Dylan, he isn’t quite sure he wants her back.
4.21 Average Stars on Goodreads – Party school is a wild ride of a book, but you have to wait for the hook. While the book is alright, the most interesting parts come at the very end of the book (about 60% through). Dylan is not going to an it school, a school full of prestige and potential, instead he’s going to a party school, specifically North South, a school known for having the most drugs. Dylan isn’t really excited, all he cares about is staying with his girlfriend, who is going to an it school. Rosemary is a cool character, but she honestly isn’t very likeable.
(Bit of a spoiler coming) Rosemary and Dylan are together because Dylan quit glee club in order to join hockey so he could hang out with her. During his time on the team, where Rosemary was helping out the team after being benched because of an injury, Dylan hangs out and trains with Rosemary a lot, but she ends up dating another boy on the team Kody, but later leaves him for Dylan, and come the end of the book, you realize Kody and Rosemary didn’t end on the best terms. This is similar to how Rosemary starts dating someone while Dylan was under the impression that the two of them were still dating, just taking a break while they got used to college. Overall, I didn’t find Rosemary’s character very likeable, she seemed very bratty, and maybe because we only see Dylan’s point of view, she also seems very self-centered and apathetic. Most of the other characters are much more likeable, but they’re all introduced quite fast, which made it a bit difficult remembering who is who, and what each character is like.
There was also two characters who seemed somewhat like a waste. First is Samantha, Dylan and Samantha meet at the very beginning of college, and while at the beginning it’s hinted that Dylan likes her, he refuses to think like that because he still think she’s with Rosemary. (Another spoiler) At the end of the book, Dylan does ask Samantha out, but we never see anything about their future relationship, which makes their chemistry a bit of a waste. Things could’ve been better if Dylan found out about Rosemary being with someone else, and stopped holding out such high hopes that they’ll get back together, and actually think about the people who really care or could care more about him. The next character that was a bit of a waste was TTK! He seemed like a cool and chill character, and then he’s revealed to be a part of something way bigger, and it’s completely glossed over in the end! I would have loved to see more of TTK, and overall wish we got some other points of view in the book because it could give us an insight on Rosemary, and let us see more of glossed over characters like TTK and Samantha.
Dylan was a good MC, but he could’ve been great if he wasn’t so focused on Rosemary, and had a bit more confidence in himself. Dylan was being held back because of his relationship with Rosemary, and it felt odd that he still contacted her, and hangs out with her. She treated him badly, and the fact that he wasn’t more upset with her, and still ran back to her when she needed him really undid the growth that Dylan had. I somewhat wish he actually got mad at her because people are allowed to be angry! Dylan should’ve been allowed to be angry, but he held on to the old Rosemary, he didn’t see the new one. The book is a wild ride, but not much happens until the end of the book, and there’s a lot going on at the end of the book. In this book, things seem pretty boring in the beginning, and then too fast at the end. 2.5 stars.
Cannot be found in the FHS library
Tags – YA, Coming-of-Age, Romance, Fiction, High school to college
