Nantucket Red by Leila Howland (Nantucket #2): Review

Title: Nantucket Red (Nantucket #2)
Author: Leila Howland
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Buy This Book: Amazon 

Cricket Thompson's lifetime of overachieving has paid off: she's headed to Brown University in the fall, with a spot on the lacrosse team and a scholarship that covers almost everything. Who knew living in the dorm cost money? An Ivy League education seems to mean living at home for the next four years.
When Cricket is offered the chance to earn enough cash to afford a real college experience, she heads back to Nantucket for the summer. But the faraway island challenges Cricket in ways she hadn't anticipated. It's hard to focus on earning money for next year, when she finds her world opening up in entirely new ways-to art, to travel, and, most unexpectedly, to a future completely different from the one she has been working toward her whole life. A friendship blossoms with Ben, the gorgeous surfer and bartender who encourages Cricket to be free, even as she smarts at the pain of seeing Zack, her first love, falling for her worst enemy.
But one night, when Cricket finally lets herself break all her own rules, she realizes she may have ruined her carefully constructed future with one impulsive decision. Cricket must dig deep to fight for her future, discovering that success isn't just about reaching goals, but also about listening to what she's been trying to ignore-her own heart. (Goodreads summary.)

I read and reviewed Nantucket Blue, and gave it 4/5 butterflies, and instantly moved onto my copy of Nantucket Red. I had found Nantucket Blue to be a really easy read, it had it's funny moments and it's cute romance moments. It wasn't a book that blew my mind or anything, but it was definitely enjoyable. So I went into Red with high hopes, I was hoping for another fun, enjoyable read. Unfortunately, for me at least, Nantucket Red fell short.

How I felt about NR.

It picks up from where Nantucket Blue ended, where Cricket and Zack have got together and she's apparently in love with him. And then she proceeds to basically break up with him five minutes later because he is going away to college. Basically, he is offered a place at a boarding school and accepts but this will take him far away from Cricket. Deciding that she doesn't want to do long distance, even though she says she loves him, she decides that they should put the relationship on 'pause' until the next Summer. I was frankly unsurprised when Zack was less than impressed with her way of thinking. To me, Nantucket Red made Nantucket Blue seem pointless for the longest time and then the end of Red just made the whole of Red seem pointless and irrelevant.

The beginning of the book works to show us what happens to Cricket between the end of Nantucket Blue and the next Summer, as quickly as possible. It's really quick and involves a lot of things happening that are way too convenient for me. I really can't explain in detail because I don't like to spoil anything but things just seem to conveniently happen for Cricket that work out perfectly in her favour. This bothered me throughout the entire book.

Cricket was a real issue for me because I really didn't like her in this book. I am not sure why she got to me so much, but it's hard to love a book when the main character is making you want to hit them. I had an issue with her from the word go, her breaking up with Zack made little to no sense to me. If you are declaring your love for someone one minute then I don't see why you are then telling them you can't handle long distance literally ten seconds after! If you really loved a person then you could probably make it work if you really wanted to try. She also makes a ton of bad decisions, but blames everyone else and gets angry at everyone else when things go wrong but never holds herself accountable for any of her own actions. I couldn't stand that about her, I was ready to be done with Cricket by then.

How I felt about Cricket.

Surprisingly, to me at least, I came to absolutely adore Ben, the new guy and love interest that is introduced in this book. He plays guitar and is a little emotionally unavailable at times, but I loved him. Now he was a fun character, he had a sense of humour and he was a breath of fresh air compared to Cricket. At one point I really did just think 'Screw Cricket, screw Zack... Ben all the way!!!'. Yup, I was rooting for Ben the whole time, not to end up with Cricket but just to somehow take over this story and make it all about him.

For a sequel I felt the whole thing seemed a little irrelevant. I don't feel like Blue ended in a way that seriously required a sequel to be written. It showed a cute, first-love story on Nantucket, it was fun, it was easy and it was enjoyable. Red just added too much pointless drama and a storyline that seems kind of silly by the time you get to the end. It only got fun and interesting at about the 65% mark, but by then it wasn't enough to make this all that enjoyable for me. I just felt far too disconnected and disappointed in this story, it wasn't what I was expecting at all.

2.5/5 Butterflies

This wasn't an awful book, but it just seemed like a really irrelevant sequel to me. I felt like it lessened and ruined my enjoyment of the first book as well, which is really strange but true. By the time I reached the end of the story I was left wondering if I really needed to have read it in the first place, especially with the way it ended. I felt like this didn't add much on to Cricket's story, there was far too much forced drama and convenient events that worked perfectly in Cricket's favour. It was still an easy enough read but I didn't enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed Nantucket Blue. 

*I received a copy of this novel from the author/publisher/publicist via Netgalley in exchange for a free and honest review and received no monetary compensation for this review.