'89 Walls by Katie Pierson

89 Walls by Katie Pierson

College is not in the cards for Seth. He spends his minimum wage on groceries and fakes happiness to distract his mum from the MS they both know will kill her. It's agony to carry around a frayed love note for a girl who's both out of his league and beneath his dignity. Quinn's finishing high school on top. But that cynical, liberal guy in her social studies class makes her doubt her old assumptions. Challenging the rules now, though, would a) squander her last summer at home, b) antagonize her conservative dad, and c) make her a hypocrite. Seth and Quinn's passionate new romance takes them both by surprise. They keep it a secret: it's too early to make plans and too late not to care. But it's 1989. As politics suddenly gets personal, they find themselves fighting bare-fisted for their beliefs - and each other - in the clear light of day.

Review:
89 Walls is the story of Quinn and Seth, two teens on their way to college in 1989. Quinn comes from a wealthy background with conservative roots while Seth, who has been madly in love with Quinn for three years, hasn't always had the best shot at life. His mum has MS and her disease is running both of their lives. With college off the table for Seth and Quinn heading off to Washington DC in a few months it's bound to get difficult for these two kids who have somehow, despite all of the differences, fallen in love with each other.

This book wasn't fantastic. I'll admit that I was expecting a lot more than what I got when I requested an arc from Net Galley. Right off the bat I could tell that there would be a lot of candid sex talk, which I was more than happy about - coming from the opinion that having sex in YA could not possibly be damaging. However, there was a lot of focus on politics throughout 89 Walls which I did understand much of and, frankly, bored me. The discussion of war and USA's stance on it might be more interesting to somebody who is from the USA or has more knowledge of politics/history than I do but it definitely wasn't my favourite part of the book.


I did feel that a lot of the book was simply just lacking something. Lacking some extra description, lacking some more emotion, just lacking. 89 Walls was dense in places and yet, also not. None of the characters really made an impact on me - while I didn't hate them, I didn't love them either. This just wasn't the type of book that really stood out to me and I'm extremely disappointed that I didn't enjoy it more.