A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall: Review

Title: A Little Something Different
Author: Sandy Hall
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Buy This Book: Amazon / Book Depository

The creative writing teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in common—they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together. Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work things out.  But somehow even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone can see it. Their creative writing teacher pushes them together. The baristas at Starbucks watch their relationship like a TV show. Their bus driver tells his wife about them. The waitress at the diner automatically seats them together. Even the squirrel who lives on the college green believes in their relationship. Surely Gabe and Lea will figure out that they are meant to be together.... 

A Little Something Different is, just as the title suggests, a little something different. A romance told in fourteen perspectives, none of which are the two characters that they're all itching to see get together. I thought that premise sounded so intriguing and isn't one I have ever come across before. It just sounded so incredibly cute and fluffy and I really couldn't wait to read it.

Sums up the book perfectly.

The book delivered on the cute, the fluffy and the fourteen perspectives. But I didn't end up enjoying the book as much as I assumed I would. It's actually incredibly frustrating getting the story from everyone else's perspective, except for Gabe and Lea's. Sometimes I was just itching to find out what they were both thinking. The fourteen POVs was definitely an interesting choice in how to tell a story, but I could have done without a few of them. The bench and squirrel for instance, both quite funny but neither very necessary.


If you're a fan of cute romances, than A Little Something Different is probably the perfect book for you. I am just one of those people who can only deal with so much cute fluffiness before I want to vomit. It's how I have always been and I never see that changing. This is cute, cute, cute, cute, cute. But Gabe and Lea's friends have way more patience than I do. I would have been shouting at them to get their sh*t together after a month or two. I applaud their friends for having to listen to them go on and on about the other person, whilst never having the courage to even say hello to one another.

My Gabe feels.

I think that Lea and Gabe were actually my biggest problems with this book. Not being able to get inside their heads made me feel like I never really got to know them. Seeing them through everybody else's eyes just made them seem like two of the most useless human beings on the planet. They are perfect for each other. Both just seem beyond help at times, but Gabe a lot more than Lea. He really reminded me of Charlie from the Perks of Being a Wallflower in a lot of ways. I loved Perks, but always felt like Charlie was just a bit too awkward and a bit too annoying considering he burst into tears every two minutes. I connected with Charlotte, the barista, who also thought that Gabe was a weird.

My other main problem with this book was the writing. It's not awful, but it could still use a large amount of work. The biggest problem is the dialogue between characters. Most of the time the dialogue feels forced, stilted and unnatural. It really took me out of the story because the conversations never flowed or felt real to me. I also lost count of the number of times that Lea announced 'The most amazing thing just happened!' after every interaction with Gabe.

3/5 Butterflies

This book delivers all the cute fluffiness that I was expecting, but it was just a bit too much for me to handle. I thought the premise was really interesting. seeing a romance play out from everyone else's perspective and not theirs. My main issues came to be Gabe and Lea, they both frustrated me and made me want to hit them. I also hated the dialogue because it never felt real, it always seemed really forced. If you can handle lots of fluffy cuteness then I think this is probably the book for you. 

*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.