First of all, let me thank Netgalley and ABRAMS Kids/Amulet Books for the chance to read and review this book: Final Draft, pre-release. As always, these thoughts are my own. This review is spoiler-free and no main plot points are revealed.

I give this story 3.25 stars.

Final Draft
Synopsis:

The only sort of risk 18-year-old Laila Piedra enjoys is the peril she writes for the characters in her stories: epic sci-fi worlds full of quests, forbidden love, and robots. Her creative writing teacher has always told her she has a special talent. But three months before her graduation, he's suddenly replaced—by Nadiya Nazarenko, a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist who is sadistically critical and perpetually unimpressed.

At first, Nazarenko’s eccentric assignments seem absurd. But before long, Laila grows obsessed with gaining the woman’s approval. Soon Laila is pushing herself far from her comfort zone, discovering the psychedelic highs and perilous lows of nightlife, temporary flings, and instability. Dr. Nazarenko has led Laila to believe that she must choose between perfection and sanity—but rejecting her all-powerful mentor may be the only way for Laila to thrive.



Relatable
This story is a ya contemporary about a writer who loses her mojo. While I typically do not read or enjoy contemporaries (there's a sad lack of magic and dragons, usually) I did enjoy this story. The main character, Laila, is a happy writer until her encouraging teacher is replaced. I found her struggle and discouragement relatable-- at her age, I was a published teen ready to take on the world and write myself into the spotlight I'd always dreamed of. Now, almost ten years later, I find myself struggling to even research my story if ANYthing is off.

Slow-ish
While this story is a story of Laila's fall from writing grace if you will, I found it relatable and . . . boring. Her group of friends acts and talks realistically, and the group dynamics are great. Riley Redgate writes this gorgeously and the anger scenes felt really realistic to me, but it moved a little slow. That said, I finished it in a day.

Not PG
This looks like a sweet PG story-- but it's not. There's a scene where Laila-- ahem-- explores her body for the first time. It's awkward. There's some definite pansexuality, and there's some groping. All trigger warnings, all tough. There's death, and depression, but for me, the previous list was more disturbing. Maybe I'm like Laila in that way.

I did enjoy starting and finishing this book in one afternoon. It was nice to breeze through it. I liked the bi-raciality of the MC, and I liked the family dynamics as well. This is a great book for a quick contemporary read.

4.5 stars/5

“Have you ever had a day that felt like it changed the trajectory of your entire life?”

This is one of the most beautifully crafted and written books I have read this year, if not ever.
I've suddenly lost my ability to write words because I literally just finished this book and it took my breath away.

I did not properly prepare myself for how big of an emotional mess this book would make me, because WOW did a lot of the events in this just completely throw me off guard and make me think about my own relationships with people in my own life.

First off, this is one of the only times I've read a book and felt the need to highlight phrases. There are so many incredible quotes in here that I found myself highlighting something all.the.time.

I did not expect myself to relate to this story as much as I did. I am not someone who is very into creative writing at this time but my god did I relate to Laila on so many levels. In high school, I also had a teacher who guided me entirely through my last 2 years in school. I don't know what I would have done without her, and I am still very close with her. I owe her a lot for what she did for me in that time and what she continues to do for me. Laila's relationship with her creative writing teacher really resonated with me and my experiences, and I loved their relationship to pieces.

The reason I took .5 off was mainly because Laila's friends often frustrated me. They made constant sarcastic comments about how she isn't adventurous, never went out, or wasn't very fun. And if Laila did want to go out, they all acted fake shocked and made a huge deal about it. This is more of a personal opinion rather than one I would expect others to be annoyed about because this is something that happens to me consistently. I, like Laila, am often the subject of the "oh my GOD ___ actually wants to go out?" joke, and I didn't really enjoy reading Laila's friends do this all time.

If you are a writer you will LOVE this book. It is full of the complexities, hardships, and upsides of creative writing and it is all dealt with beautifully. With all the insights into Laila's mind as a writer, she became this incredibly well crafted and well rounded main character, carrying this book all the way to its beautiful end.

This story is an incredible coming of age story and exactly what I wanted to read right now. I would HIGHLY recommend this book, especially to those of you who are writers.

After reading (and really enjoying) Noteworthy earlier this year, I was excited to see that Riley Redgate was coming out with a new story this year.

Similarly to Noteworthy, I really enjoyed Redgate’s writing style. Without being juvenile, it makes me feel like I am in the head of a teenage girl again. This transformation is not easy to achieve, but it definitely adds to the impact of the story.

The main character, Laila, was so relatable. Her insecurity and her anxiety were believable, and something that I think a lot of teenage girls go through. I also appreciated the honest discussion of her sexuality (including using the word pansexual!) and her fears about expressing herself as a sexual being. I haven’t seen a YA book with such frank discussions/descriptions of masturbation, and I think it’s important for especially teenage girls to see. As Laila points out, most of the information girls that age are gettin about topics of expressing sexuality come from peers, the Internet, and/or often flowery fan fiction. Redgate is able to educate without it feeling like an innuendo or a textbook.

The plot did get lost at times, which kept this from being a five star book for me. Still, I have become an even bigger fan of Redgate’s writing and look forward to reading more in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

Final Draft

by Riley Redgate

ABRAMS Kids

Amulet Books

Teens & YA

Pub Date 12 Jun 2018

I am reviewing a copy of Final Draft through Amulet Books and Netgalley:

Laila Piedra only enjoys the risks she puts her characters in, in her stories. Her Science-Fi stories are full quests forbidden loves and robots. Her creative writing teacher always told her she had a special talent. Just three months before she is to graduate he dies suddenly and is replaced by a Pulitzer Prize Winning Novelist Nadiya Nazarenkho, who never seems to be impressed by Laila’s writing.

At first Laila finds Nadiya’s assignments to me eccentric but before long she is fighting to win her approval. Laila soon finds herself doing things she could have never imagined doing before.

I give Final Draft four out of five stars!

Happy Reading

I think this was just a poor fit for me, rather than a book with issues/problems (at least insofar as I read)... I found myself unable to engage with Laila (despite usually connecting well with stories about those who don't fit in and especially with books about writing books), and couldn't ever seem to find that something that would bring me fully into her world. I was listlessly flipping pages when I finally just decided to call it what it was: a poor fit.

! I thought Laila was a really interesting and well done character, and her struggles with her identity really rang true. I also really liked her diverse and delightfully nerdy friend group. And it’s an NYC story! The pacing got a little weird at the end, I thought. Suddenly we’re graduating? I also thought Nadiya Nazarenko, in particular, was a bit of a cliche, but she did precipitate Laila’s quest to come out of her shell and everything that happened as a result, so I get why that decision was made. Maybe it also got too much about the romance at the end and less about the writing? I don’t know, I still think this one was pretty special and unique. I think our more writerly teens will really identify with Laila.

This book was beautiful in some ways.
While there was nothing really original, and the tropes in this book are so overdone, there were certain aspects that I loved.
The author portrays depression and grief in a way that I believe is successful, especially in today's society as a high schooler.
I will admit I was bored at first. Like, really bored, to the point where I would skip to the dialogue. There was so much unnecessary information, like backstory and setting, that made my want to read this title falter. But I trudged on, because I was interested in where the story would go. The author's personal writing style is conversational and simple, and that works in a lot of books, but it didn't feel completely successful for this book. I would read the protagonist's own writing and it would take me a second to split it from the rest of the plot, simply because the styles were the same. The emails exchanged between the protagonist and her teacher also felt like they were the same person to me. (Maybe I read way too much into this and it isn't as blatantly obvious as I believe it to be, but I couldn't differentiate anything unless I was told to.)
I think that this could be a book that everyone could enjoy, if they're able to look over the faults.

Laila Piedra lives for the stories she writes, and the only person who reads them is her creative writing teacher. Until he ends up in the hospital and he's replaced by a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who is exceptionally critical and continuously unimpressed. Her strange assignment leads Laila on an obsessive journey to win her praise. 

I have a soft spot for Riley Redgate. Seven Ways We Lie, her debut novel, was the reason I started giving contemporary novels another chance and I really, really enjoyed Final Draft. There was something personal yet universal about it.

Final Draft perfectly tackles the anxiety of writers. Laila has no idea what her future holds but what she is sure of is her stories even if she never lets anyone read them. I related so damn much with part of her. I couldn’t also allow anyone read any of the fanfiction I had written when I was younger, even hiding under a pseudonym so it couldn’t be traced to me. Laila yearns to make something that people will love, the same way she loves her favourite series. But she’s never satisfied, even when she’s told she is doing well. She’s literally her own worst critic. But the introduction of the new teacher means Laila must face a different approach and starts to experience more things in a real-life setting to improve her writing.

The only one real criticism I have, which is practically the same as Seven Ways We Lie, was the lack of responsibility the new teacher had. Though technically she can claim deniability since she never told the students explicitly to do the things they do but suggesting students do things that could potentially put them in danger and or upset someone was a bit irresponsible. But she’s a very ambiguous character, so you’ll understand what she’s trying to do while not fully appreciating the ways she does it.

First Draft is a coming of age story about grief, first love and self-love as Laila learns to manage the fear that holds her back. It’s very relatable, straightforward and entertaining to read. Look out for this when it comes out.

As a writer, this story really resonated with me. The idea of writing and sharing a story is so deeply personal, it can be hard for people to understand. Also, I freaking LOVE Riley Redgate and would read her shopping list if I could.

Final Draft could have been SO GOOD.

It had the bones of a great YA book. Laila wants to be a science fiction writer. She works on it all the time with her mentor, a middle-aged creative writing teacher.

When he's suddenly involved in an accident, a famous author takes his place to finish out the semester.

What could be a great book exploring growth, writing, loss and friendships simply turns into another exploration of a girl's exploration with her sexuality including pages of masturbation and her guilt on the subject.

The weird dynamic between the group of unlikely friends is very realistic and the setting interesting as well.

"When had she risked anything, really? She looked back through her life and saw a procession of schoolday routines, chores, conversational chatter. She felt like a witness to the massacre of all her time. For a horrible moment, she wondered if she'd only ever written science fiction to build an escape chute from her life's insistent monotone."


This was one of my most anticipated books, because as a big fan of Redgate’s two previous books, I was hoping this book would live up to the hype!
What you can expect from this book:
-a hella queer cast of characters
-f/f romance following the trope of friends turned to lovers
-a nuanced look at the writers life and the teenage in high school life

We follow Laila, an aspiring writer who’s very focused on her WIP and works hard in her creative writing senior year. She’s the type of writer that is obsessive and expects perfection from herself (as they say: you are your own worst critic) and is described as “sadistically critical and perpetually unimpressed."

Her mentor and creative writing teacher is replaced by the NYT bestselling Pulitzer winning novelist who takes a different teaching approach to the class. Laila loses her one and only beta reader, from which she sought writing advice and life advice, and her life starts to fall apart. This new teacher encourages to get out of her head and experience more things in real life, to be more adventurous out there in the world.

This could be described as a coming-of-age arc in which our main character was wildly relatable to me personally. She identifies herself as pansexual, even though her whole life talk about sex has been repressed and shamed. She is biracial and has a group of her three best friends with a real friendship dynamic that’s messy but also goals. Redgate is amazing at exploring some more deeper topics and dynamics, and it was flawlessly executed.

**Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me a copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own**

I loved the story line of this book. A perfectionist nerd who writes sci-fi and does literally nothing else. Unfortunately for Laila she's forced outside her comfort zones for her own sake and her story. She is forced to participate in the world around her, and take chances. Final Draft is a beautifully written story about growing up and the fears that come along with it. As much as I loved this story I feel like it ended right when it really got started. It could be that I just wanted more.

I want to start by saying that this book scores an A+ in diversity. The protagonist is pansexual, multi-racial and fat. The character cast has a variety of races and sexual orientations and while I’ve said before that diversity doesn’t automatically make a book good, it definitely makes a good book better.

This is a book that has a surprising number of twists and turns for a contemporary. In most ways, I am nothing like Laila but I fully identified with her. That yearning to make something that people will love deeply. Losing yourself in fictional worlds so much that your life takes a back seat. I was angry with her, and I ached with her. Redgate’s portrayal of grief is painfully real.

There is so much frank honesty in this book from Laila’s grief to her repressed sexuality that it’s stunning. The way sexuality and sensuality are written is so naked, no pun intended. Laila feels a shame that will be all too familiar to some girls. She struggles with her identity, with her craft, with finding love, and most importantly with loving herself.

There were things I didn’t like quite as much. Partway through the book, it felt like Redgate sort of dropped the ball on Laila’s friend group losing interest in two of the four all together. The ending has a clearly intentional ambiguity about the future of Laila’s writing. While I really loved the romance it seemed to suddenly consume the entirety of the story near the end. It’s not entirely clear is Laila goes back to loving fiction so fiercely or reconciles with her other friends. Even some of the romance is left a little more open-ended than I’d personally like.

Laila’s struggles are easy for everyone, even non-writers to understand. She’s never satisfied with her work, even when she has people telling her it’s brilliant. When someone tells her it’s not, she has a downwards spiral desperately trying to please. She tries to alter herself as a person to improve her craft while her world collapses around her. Redgate’s writing is intensely relatable and, despite the plot’s initial slow build, feels quick paced.

I did thoroughly enjoy this book and empathize with Laila. I just wish her writing had been better incorporated and more intertwined with the story. I wished her writing had mattered more towards the end because I wanted to read about Laila the Writer most of all.

Points for diversity and soul-crushing emotions, but I wanted to real Laila’s final draft. Even if by the end of the story it doesn’t seem to matter at all.

A fun young adult novel that I enjoyed reading! Full of laughter and surprises

This book is a treasure. It’s about Laila’s obsession with artistic perfection, and that’s a feeling I know very well. It’s about how the growth of her writing corresponds to her own personal growth. It’s about being shy and learning to expand horizons and branch out into ‘real life’ in a way that is interesting rather than overdone.

This is my first Riley Redgate book so I don’t have much of a reference for her writing style across other works, but I’ve read some other reviews and someone pointed out that she discusses and dissects a topic in a lot of detail but doesn’t come back to it again. But I did notice it a bit in ‘Final Draft’: it feels a bit like going through a checklist of things that have to be mentioned instead of being woven in seamlessly. But I did like that the discussions were happening, and that they were detailed.

The only ‘fault’ I have with this book is how the show and story Laila is writing was tied in with the rest of the book. I skimmed through a lot of those parts: it was a struggle to pay attention or care (mainly because sci-fi is not a genre that hugely interests me). I don’t like when characters go into massive amounts of detail about plots that aren’t relevant to the main plot, but that’s just a personal preference of mine.

Overall, ‘Final Draft’ is a relatable, interesting, and diverse read for readers and writers alike. I can imagine that Riley Redgate will quickly find herself on my list of favourite authors.

I haven't read any of Redgate's previous novels but I want to after Final Draft! I absolutely loved the representation, with a half-Ecuadorian pansexual protagonist who felt like such a real character, and there were a couple of points during the book where I teared up a little. The netgalley blurb for the story is slightly different to the one on goodreads, giving away a bit of a spoiler that doesn't come until 70% of the way through the book, though that long wait meant I wasn't quite ready despite knowing what would happen. I would've liked to have seen more of Laila's writing and more interaction with Nazarenko, and I'll admit that I found Samuel and Sebastien to be indistinguishable side characters. Towards the end, the story seemed to blur a bit and without spoiling the story, I felt there were some things that should have been dealt with more, considering their importance earlier in the novel. This was a solid YA book with great representation, but it just lacked a more solid final 20% or so of the book.

This was good, not as great as Noteworthy, but I really liked Final Draft. The main character was someone I felt I could relate to, especially as I saw her mental health slipping away. I think it was a good book, and I hope it falls into the right person's hands because I can see it really helping and doing great things for them.

Thank you to NetGalley and Riley Redgate for allowing me to read and review an ARC of Final Draft. This novel was timely and the author took the opportunity to create well-rounded, diverse characters. In general, I thought that it was well-written and poignant. I did have a problem with the main character's oversharing with her teacher, and I'm not the target age group, but I really enjoyed this novel anyway.

Riley Redgate discussed sexual orientation, coming of age sexually (learning about your body and heart), making mistakes while you are learning who you are, mental health issues, friendship issues, growing up in a biracial family, sibling rivalry... I mean, what didn't she touch on?

I look forward to picking up one of the author's other novels, as soon as I can.

5/5

4.5 stars

"When had she risked anything, really? She looked back through her life and saw a procession of schoolday routines, chores, conversational chatter. She felt like a witness to the massacre of all her time. For a horrible moment, she wondered if she'd only ever written science fiction to build an escape chute from her life's insistent monotone."

Thank you so much to ABRAMS Kids/Amulet Books for providing me with an e-ARC of this via NetGalley!!!!!

riley redgate is a treasure and i loved this book so much

where do i even begin

★ First of all, LAILA. Final Draft is one of the most introspective books I've read in a long time. It paints Laila's internal environment so vividly and so poignantly that her being a fully-fleshed character becomes not so much a possibility as an inevitability. The result is a character that is nothing short of brilliant. Laila wants so fiercely, aches so candidly. She is an open book to you, but never comfortably so, never to the point of becoming predictable or easily definable. And so much of the book is about that, about becoming attuned to her experiences, feeling them as keenly as she does. And you do, and I did.

★ More than anything, Redgate renders vulnerability with so deft a hand in this novel. And its this unquestionable sense of something always being on the line—socially, romantically, academically, personally—that makes Final Draft feel so affecting. It's an exploration of what it means to "put yourself out there," to push the boundaries of what you've taken for granted. As much as that concept has been examined and re-examined to the point of cliché, I think Final Draft is a reminder that just because it's familiar doesn't mean it's any less real. (And the book definitely, definitely doesn't handle it in a cliched way.) And as necessary and gratifying and genuinely fun as "putting yourself out there" can sometimes be, it can also be really damn scary. That's the reality that Laila has to reckon with throughout the novel, one that is so fully realized and that rang true for me on so many instances. All of this is not to say that Final Draft is a Sad Book, only that it is an authentic one.

★ One thing that is almost undeniable about this book is that Redgate is a talented writer. Everything about this novel works because her writing does. It hits all the right notes—dialogue, introspection, character description, you name it. It's the kind of writing that makes you go ...damn, not so much from the words themselves but from how they are able to convey so much feeling. There was one scene in particular that I'm pretty sure made my brain emit what is the neuroscientific equivalent of "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". I won't mention it here because I don't want to spoil it for you, but oh my goodness y'all, Riley Redgate Went There, and I love her for it.

★ I think we as a community of reviewers should coin a phrase that we can use when we want to tell people that a book is diverse. Personally, I'm thinking of something along the lines of DDD: Damn, Dat Diversity! (the use of "dat" alone makes me want to internally combust, but all for the sake of the mighty alliteration) Because if that phrase catches on (triple alliteration people !!!), I would without a doubt use it to describe Final Draft. This book is so diverse, and it makes me so happy. Laila is half-Ecuadorian, half-French Canadian, fat, tall, and queer (she reflects on how she thinks the label "pansexual" would fit her best, but she doesn't explicitly come out as pan). Her best friend Hannah (whom I LOVED, by the way) is Korean and a lesbian. There's also a lot of really great exploration of mental health, female sexuality, and racial/ethnic identity, as well as a f/f relationship. Simply put, Damn, Dat Diversity! (I'm rollin with it)

Honestly, I don't know what else to say. I went into this expecting a lot because I loved Noteworthy
so much, and it didn't disappoint, not even close. Riley Redgate is one of my favourite authors for a reason, and I really think her books speak for themselves. Final Draft was poignant and authentic and personal, and finishing it felt like I'd just Experienced Something.* This glorious book comes out on June 12th this year, and if I can boil down this actually never-ending review to one thing it would be this: read this book. It is so worth it.

*PS: I finished this book on a couch that was on sale in Costco then proceeded to close the Kindle app on my phone and look up into the aisles of wholesale products. don't you just love it when you have A Moment at Costco? truly the quintessential north-american experience

Final Draft by Riley Redgate is about Laila, a senior high school student living in New York. When her favorite creative writing teacher, Mr. Madison, is hit by a car and in the hospital he is replaced by a famous author named Nadiya Nazarenko. Ms. Nazarenko is nothing like Mr. Madison and is soon pushing Laila to do more outside the classroom to help her writing become stronger. Will listening to Nazarenko help Laila, will it ultimately hurt her in the end, or maybe a little of both? You’ll have to read to find out.

There’re a lot of things I enjoyed about this book. First off I really like the idea of Laila having to go outside her comfort zone to help with her writing. While it does inspire some less than healthy behaviors I do like the idea of seeing Laila try new things and get into situations that you don’t expect her to at the beginning of the book.

Another thing I liked is the interactions between Mr.Madison and Laila vs. Ms. Nazarenko and Laila. A situation regarding having a new teacher who doesn’t teach class the way students are used to is something that a lot of students actually can end up going through. I have been exactly where Laila is regarding a new and tougher teacher replacing a teacher that is more laid back regarding grading and how class is run. I know how tough it can be and I feel a lot of students will relate to this too. This even reminded me of a more adult version of this Amazing Days of Abby Hayes book that had a similar plot set around the holidays where Abby’s class gets a new replacement teacher who is mean to the class. It’s not exactly the same, but something I wanted to point out.

Another thing I really liked about this book is the diversity in this book. I am not 100% sure if this book is own voice or not, but it is includes not only a possible pansexual MC (the main character is questioning is she is pansexual though to my knowledge the author never explicitly says if the MC is Pan or not. Though she is seen being attracted to a variety of different people and does fall in love with another girl in the book), a half Ecuadorian half French Canadian MC, & a lesbian Korean best friend to name a few. The book also showcases the main character dealing with some mental health issues including depression. The depression stuff seemed pretty accurate, but could be a little triggering for some people so reader’s be fair warned.On top of sexuality, racial/ethnic diversity, and mental health the book also touches on female sexuality and actually acknowledges girls who masturbate. The description does not get too graphic, but it is also doesn’t shy away from the topic either. I have never read a book that included that in it so it was nice seeing it for a change.

Something else I really liked about this book was the subplots we get to see and interaction between the different characters. I loved the relationship that Mr. Madison and Laila have, as well as seeing Laila’s family interact, Laila and Hannah, and other characters. The romantic, friend, and/or family relationships in this book and the subplots regarding some of them really shine. I loved being able to be introduced to these characters and see them grow together.

There were only two issues I really had with this book. The first had to do with the show and book that Laila was writing. I found myself struggling to pay attention or care during those parts as they really did not interest me. I don’t usually enjoy that much in fandom related books when the author tries to put a story a character has written or too much information regarding the show or movie or book fandom they are involved in. This may just be a personal preference of mine so take that criticism as you will, but to be honest I just was finding myself bored when the character’s would go into detail about what was happening on their favorite show or when there were excerpts of the story that Laila is writing. Like I said maybe this is not a big deal for some readers, but for me it does slow the story down and take me out of it. The other issue is regards to Sean. Without giving too much away it sounded like they were leading up to something with Leila and Samuel regarding giving us more information about Samuel’s actions and intentions with Leila. After this is discovered I don’t really feel we get proper closure. This is not to say that Leila has to forgive Samuel for doing such a awful thing, but it felt like the book was being set up for more and with Samuel possibly being confronted about what Leila finds out at least. However, we don’t see much of Samuel after the discovery is made and I think there needed to be at least one scene that has some sort of closure to this situation whether it be a confrontation or revenge or just a simple interaction following what Leila finds. I kind of wish there was one in the book since the story feels like it is going to go that route or was leading toward it, especially after Leila finds out.

Overall, Final Draft is an excellent read that features a relatable storyline, interesting plot points, a diverse cast of characters, and light on things that you do not always see in a YA novel. If I had to make any complaints I wish the author had toned it down on the fandom talk in the book and also gave us more regarding the incident involving Samuel and Leila. All in all this book is one that you will be running to the book store for so get ready for this great read coming in June.

4 out of 5 Stars

**** out of *****