This was such a sweet read and definitely the first of many I will be reading by this author. I found all the characters relatable in their own way. The romance aspect was written so well.

DNF at 25%. It's been over three years since I received this ARC. I gave it a go and have decided it is not for me. It interested me then and no longer does now.

I will not be giving feedback on this book as I couldn’t really get into it but I think others may enjoy it.

The main characters of this book Sophie and Peter were talented, flawed, annoying, selfish, kind—and human. Sophie is a dancer with a life-long crush in the making on her best friend Peter. Peter is a musician who is exploring his bisexuality and a healthier life with a new donor kidney—Sophie’s kidney. Sometimes I hated both these main characters, but other times I loved them.

I gave this book three stars because of its raw, bittersweet tone that encapsulates real life. I appreciated this book. But I didn’t love it.

I plan to go more in-depth on my BookTube channel about why I had a hard time with the climax and denouement of this book (which is full of spoilers, so I don’t want to include it in this review). Again, while it did feel “real,” it ruined my appreciation for both Sophie and Peter. And I wanted to appreciate them, especially Peter.

Anyway, I would totally recommend this book for fans of John Green, Robyn Schneider, and Rainbow Rowell.

Rachel Lynn Solomon is a master at crafting complex and realistic characters with complicated relationships, and they are so relatable. Her books are so important for teenagers to read because they deal with raw, realistic experiences.

In Our Year of Maybe, Sophie finds out that her best friend (with whom she is secretly in love), is in desperate need of a kidney transplant. She finds out she’s a match, and she donates a kidney to him to save his life, with subtle hopes that her feelings for him might be reciprocated. Things get messed when she finds out that while Peter has had feelings for her, he wants to explore a relationship with a guy named Chase, a guitarist in a band. Not only is she heartbroken over this, she is concerned that their friendship may be at stake, too.

Beautifully crafted with well developed characters you will root for both as individuals and in their relationships with one another. I gave this book five stars on Goodreads.

DNF
Thank you for the opportunity to read this title. Unfortunately, presently I have no interest in reading this title as I am in a YA slump. I may come back to it when I am in the mood in the future. I apologize for the convenience.

This book was bummer for me for several reasons.

First SPOILER ALERT: I hate books without a happy ending. Some might say that this book was just real, and that's why it was so good, but I want cheesy romance, I want happiness and I want true love. That's not something this book has given me.

I also ended up disliking the characters. the only ones that was really nice where Sophie, Liz and Montana. I despised Chase and I also wasn't that much of a fan of Peter. Yes Peter was ill and he deserves the world BUT I think he was super self centered, he never gave back the friendship Sophie deserved ( I am not talking about the love department here) and he was always only talking about how he doesn't want to be indebted to her his whole life. She gave you her kidney, you better feel grateful and indebted. Well that's what I call unthankful and I was super angry at him most of the time.

I think the idea for the book was great. To show how torn up a donor and the ill person can become. How their relationship gets more complicated and how hard it is to separate feelings that are real from ones that are only because of the donorship. I also think it was great, that the main character was bisexual, with a great step for the LGBTQ community to be presented more normally, But in the end I decided if the book was good by how much I loved the characters and the story, and to be honest I disliked Peters actions, and I don't think that this is how you would really act with a best friend. So I need up liking the story and the ideas woven into it, but was super unhappy when I closed the book.

I just couldn't finish this one.

I'm thinking this book may be a sophomore slump because I really enjoyed Solomon's debut novel. This one was great for the first half but then the book slid into bland and boring territory. Solomon is talented, there's no doubt, but the writing in the last half of this book feels like even she was bored of the story.

This book was touching and made me feel so much. I felt such pain for both Sophie and Peter and the difficulties they had getting to a "new normal". I would read this book again and again

Bloody brilliant, as is literally EVERYTHING Rachel Lynn Solomon writes. The voice, the real characterization, the messy truth about teenage love and friendship and life, it's all so perfectly amazing, this author is quickly rising to the top of my favorite YA contemp authors. I cannot say enough about this book. LOVED IT!

Once I started reading Our Year of Maybe, I couldn’t put it down. It starts with Sophie with her dance team at the last practice before summer break after junior year. She’s giving a kidney to her best friend and crush Peter. Her fam isn’t as happy about this as Peter’s and things are tense. Peter now has the health and energy to to back to public school, and stand up to his parents while Sophie’s feeling the pain in different ways.

I totally get Sophie’s adaptation and camouflage around people. I connected with Sophie’s personality struggles more while Peter’s new life and romance were achingly adorable. Their families are dynamic and flawed and you’ll have no problem keeping them and all the friends straight. There’s dance team girls and a band. I like how unrequited love doesn’t get solved with another romance. It’s…tricky.



MY FAVORITE SOPHIE QUOTES:
Sophie Orenstein: perennial maybe.



Now that he’s in school with me, he’ll know what I really am when he’s not around: a burnt-out light of a person.



“I didn’t know you were capable of that, ” Corrie says. The truth is that neither did I.

FAVORITE PETER QUOTES:
I’m the miracle, but Sophie…Sophie is the hero.

In the past, I always envied groups like this, who were loud in public and laughed too much. Now I’m too loud. I laugh too much.

The terrible truth: Sophie is both a reminder of everything I went through and everything I can do now.

These are all quotes from early on in the book to introduce you to them. My absolute favorites are towards the very end and would be spoilers. Their journey together and apart is amazing. I can’t really find the words to go into detail without giving away anything. It’s….AHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

THINGS I LOVE ABOUT OUR YEAR OF MAYBE:
Teen Mom Making it Work. YES! I love her sister Tabby, her niece Luna, and the baby daddy. Very honest and decent portrayal about how having a child while a teen changes everything and makes some things so much harder.
Reality of chronic kidney disease, dialysis, and catheters.
Sophie has dyslexia
Girl masturbation with a vibrator
Sophie and her dad connect ad introverts hanging out in silence.
Sophie, Peter, Tabby and the girl’s dad all have passions for sound and music but in different ways, together similar but not.
Picking quotes was so hard because I swear there’s a highlight every couple of pages.
It explores toxicity in relationships with family, friends, and romance.
For me, the best books keep me reading to through the acknowledgements. Teary eyed and clutching my chest, I read Solomon’s acknowledgements thankfully for everyone she mentioned. It moved me enough to clarify what I would be proud of as an accomplishment and what I want to do going forward. Which sounds simple and stupid, but I’ve been struggling with where to go in my life for awhile.

I love this book. I think about it weeks after finishing and I have no doubt I’ll continue to do so. This book set my year off with the best kind of start.

I am one hundred percent certain that, had <i>Our Year of Maybe</i> by Rachel Lynn Solomon ended differently, I would have given it a rating of two. I think it safe for me to say that it is the ending that really makes this novel, however that does not mean that I liked it. I actually found this story rather boring and frustrating to read on a personal level. The thing is, <i>Our Year of Maybe</i> is too <i>real</i> for me. While I enjoy reading books that have deeper messages about ideas in our society that are perpetuated and unhealthy, this one in particular is just one that I don't find enjoyable to read in any way. So, where other books might keep me engaged and emotionally invested, with <i>Our Year of Maybe</i> I was left feeling bored on occasion and annoyed on others. The truth is, Sophie's situation felt far to close to home for me to feel anything else.

Granted, I've never given my best friend my kidney and there were certainly intricacies to their relationship that I don't relate to, but pieces of the novel reminded me of my own naivete when I was younger and that was somewhat difficult for me to read about. I had to fight fairly hard to get through this book and nearly DNFed on multiple occasions. So why, then, did I give this book a four star rating?

Well, despite my own personal feelings about the novel, I do think it has an important commentary regarding codependency, unrequited love, and the ways in which friendships grow apart. And it was pretty expertly handled. Through the course of the novel, readers are opened up to seeing how potentially damaging it can be to make one person your world and the importance of branching out to know yourself better and to be a part of the world rather than isolated within one part.

The novel follows two characters in alternating points of view as they navigate changes in their friendship when previously sick and isolated to his home, Peter, is finally able to attend high school thanks to his best friend Sophie who, upon turning 18, gave him her kidney. A novel truly about friendship, love, and growing up there were many things that the two of them needed to learn throughout.

I will say that one sticking point I do have that is definitely an issue with the novel is how the situation of the younger sister's teenage pregnancy and subsequent child was handled. The issue was presented as one that is okay and simply worked through rather than something that is a deeply problematic issue within our world and our society. Glossing over the incredible damage that such an event has on young people and their families is not something I appreciated reading about.

For the most part, while I personally didn't love this novel at all, I can definitely see where it has a lot of merit and is worth reading. A lot of the time we push the idea of love at all cost and only ever needing that one person to be complete. But the thing is, that idea is thoroughly unrealistic and as a result it becomes incredibly unhealthy for someone to believe in. And I think this book does a fantastic job of bringing that truth out into discussion, something that's incredibly important for young people to learn.

<i>I was provided a free copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.</i>

Solomon continues to write beautiful books which portray real-life in all its messy, sad, wonderful glory.
Be prepared to keep a box of tissues with you for the end of the book, and if you’re like me and had a crush on your childhood best friend who never saw you that way, go ahead and get a second box because you are going to need it.
The chapters from Sophie’s POV explore the crazy, almost obsessive, things we do for young love, even if it is unrequited and how it can become toxic to even a healthy friends.
While the chapters from Peter’s POV shows how sometimes that unrequited love isn’t a choice as he falls for Chase and struggles to accept his own emotions because he doesn’t want to break Sophie’s heart and ruin the friendship.

I thought I was going to write a long review about this book, but I don't want to. Not because I didn't love it, but because I don't have a lot to say. It was REALLY GOOD. I still loved her debut more, but man, Rachel is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine. She is amazing at writing realistic teenage experiences and relationships. She gets how complicated they are, how world-ending they seem at that age, and the ways in which we all mess up. It was hard to read at times, because of Sophie. Her love for Peter is obsessive to a high level, and he's all she thinks about, and it's almost to the point of being unrequited. Because Peter's got so much angst about it, and about her donating her kidney for him, because he doesn't know if he quite feels the same for her. So he's trying to figure himself out too, and their relationship quickly sharpens into something neither of them can really understand anymore. But that's okay, because that happens in life. Especially when you're young. I loved that this book didn't shy away from the darker parts of love and friendship, and how it also tackled the happiness and guilt that can come from something massive like organ donation. Plus, it's so sex-positive, queer-positive (Peter is bi!), and they both had a lot of growth as characters. I ADORED it!

Rating: 4 Paw Prints!

Our Year of Maybe is a story about independence, self-discovery, and love.

I first heard about this book on the Fantastic Flying Book Club and immediately signed up for its blog tour. After all, I love myself a sweet contemporary novel!

This book didn’t disappoint. Our Year of Maybe was equally fluffy, equally heartbreaking, and overall a wonderful book.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This book was SO CUTE. I love contemporaries because they’re always so fluffy and so much fun to read. While there wasn’t a prominent plot, I still found the book engaging and enjoyable. The author did a great job weaving in tension and conflict throughout the story, and there were times when I couldn’t read fast enough!

The characters were so smol!! Novels that don’t have a strong plot rely mostly on characters, and this book did a fantastic job. All of the characters were empathetic, likable, and amazing little muffins. I especially loved the internal conflict both Peter and Sophie had and their conclusions about themselves and their friendship. Their development was executed very well, and all of the characters were amazing!

Best of all, the themes were fantastic. I especially loved Sophie’s arc and how she discovered who she was without Peter. The book tackled loneliness, sacrifice, guilt, love, and friendship, and it was all so beautiful.

Peter and Sophie were so cute! Their friendship was so sweet, and it was heartbreaking and beautiful to see how things developed, fell apart, or came back together again. Although there’s a good bit of romance in this, the platonic side of their relationship was so sweet.

Being a dancer myself, I loved all the dancing. Sophie’s love for dance and choreographing hit home with me, so I absolutely loved that element of the story. Montana, the dance team captain, was so nice, and her support for Sophie was so sweet.

The prose was so pretty! Another thing I love about contemporaries is the sheer beauty of the writing. And this book is no exception! The author does a wonderful job of establishing a voice for Peter and Sophie, and her prose is beautiful.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. Although it was a pretty generic YA contemporary, it did an awesome job adding in unique elements. Overall, I enjoyed this light, fluffy contemporary and definitely recommend it!

Every once in a while, I get a book that makes me so glad that I have a book blog. Without my book blog, I would never have seen or known about Our Year of Maybe, and I would have missed out on a wonderful, contemporary novel. Sometimes, I am so thankful that I get to read these books and get to live in these stories for a time.

In this coming of age story, we find best friends, Peter and Sophie, on the cusp of major life changes. Most obviously, Sophie is giving Peter a kidney. But beyond that, the pair are figuring out their relationship with a healthy Peter, who they are as adults instead of children, and what they want to do as high school comes to an end.

The reason I loved this book is simple: I related to it so much. I’ve never experienced the pain and terror of a potentially life ending illness. I’ve also, thankfully, never been in need of an organ transplant, so you may wonder how I could relate to this story. For me, these issues were almost secondary to the characters and events taking place. Rachel Lynn Solomon so perfectly writes about the feelings of first love, unrequited love, and complicated friendships, with a deep understanding of being a teenager trying to figure out these complex emotions.

There were moments from Sophie’s point of view that I literally felt in my chest how she was feeling, because I remember all to well what that was like. Later in the book, Sophie’s mom gives her some advice that I wish I had when I was younger. After recounting her own struggles with love, she says, “You are going to stop feeling this way. I can promise you that. I wish I could tell you when, but this kind of unrequited love doesn’t last forever, kiddo. It just can’t….Our hearts wouldn’t be able to take it.”

Full stop. I could have saved myself so much heartache and time if only I figured out and believed that emotions are temporary, fleeting, and though their scars may linger, the acute pain will ease and change. They have to, otherwise, our hearts wouldn’t be able to take it.

Go read this book. It’s easy to read, funny at times, and so freaking relatable that I am little worried Rachel Lynn Solomon read my high school diary. There’s a giveaway below and some links to buy Our Year of Maybe if you aren’t the very lucky winner. Can’t wait to hear some of your thoughts.

This book was truly beautiful in its portrayal of characters, relationships and also in its writing. Truly, utterly beautiful. The relationships, their course and the feelings that emerged were incredibly real.

It was also truly heart breaking. Change is a thing I detest and never want to acknowledge. And thus the story messed up with my anxiety and even the climax couldn’t make up for it. I felt like someone took my heart out and squeezed it with all their might! Oh MY poor fragile heart! It was smashed by all the FEELS, Our Year Of Maybe made it feel.

It’s an intense coming-of-age diverse novel that will require you to have a box of tissue handy!

exchange of an honest review! I gave it 4.25 stars out of 5!

Synopsis : From the author of You’ll Miss Me When I’m Gone comes a stunning contemporary novel that examines the complicated aftermath of a kidney transplant between best friends.

This book made me feel everything. It was sad at times, funny too and showed how fragile friendships can be but also how beautiful they are. Sophie is such a strong girl and a great friend. Her love of dance was one of the best things in this book. Seeing her achieve her goal and bond with the dance team was so much fun!

Peter is also an amazing character. Seeing him discover high school, get into a band and have a crush, it brought me back to my years in high school and how much fun it could be, but also how much drama there could be. I really think this book describes it and gets it all. Rachel is an amazing writer and you can feel through the words that she really loves her character. It was also really interesting to learn about the aftermath of a transplant. All in all, I adored Our Year of Maybe and I think everyone should read it.

Our Year of Maybe is a fantastically written contemporary novel with complex characters, diversity rep, and an exploration of toxic friendships.

The main focus of Our Year of Maybe is the friendship between the two narrators, Peter and Sophie. They’ve been best friends their entire lives, and Sophie is donating her kidney to Peter, which makes for a really interesting dynamic. This friendship was certainly a highlight of the book. I really loved the way in which Rachel Lynn Solomon explored this relationship, both the good parts and the toxic parts.

In addition to friendships, Solomon portrays family bonds in her story. Parent relationships are explored, but my favorite familial relationship is the one between Sophie and her younger sister, Tabby. Tabby is a teen mom (another thing that I found very interesting to read about!) and she and Sophie aren’t super close, partly because Sophie feels weird that her little sister seems so much older than her. It was so heartwarming how these sisters connected over the course of the book.

Another thing that I loved about Our Year of Maybe is that the protagonists both have things that they're passionate about. Peter is a pianist (and also really into reading!) and Sophie is a dancer. I enjoyed the religious aspect of the book as well. I’m not a religious person at all, but this part of the book was super interesting to read, especially because, while both protagonists are Jewish, they each thought about and experienced religion in different ways, which was a nice contrast. It was cool that religion, which isn’t frequently included in YA, was talked about in the book.

This book is messy. The friendships are messy, and the romantic relationships are messy. The characters mess up, and it made the book feel real. All in all, I thought Our Year of Maybe was a well-written book with really great character dynamics, and I look forward to reading Rachel Lynn Solomon’s debut from last year!

I read Rachel Lynn Solomon's debut [book:You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone|30339479] last year, and while the premise itself didn't immediately appeal to me, the execution sure was amazing. The same is true of her second book, <i>Our Year of Maybe</i>, full of complex characters, heartbreaking situations, and nuanced explorations of Judaism.

First of all, despite the book's length (almost 400 pages) and serious subject matter--a kidney transplant, Sophie's unrequited love--I found it addicting. I just had to know what happened! And when I thought I knew where it was going, something else would happen. (But ultimately, I think it ended in a satisfying place.)

The kidney disease and transplant situation seemed well-researched, and overall the book deals with chronic disabilities. Peter isn't "cured" because of the transplant--he has to take medication--but his life does drastically change. Sophie, meanwhile, also has to take meds and monitor herself. Meanwhile, Sophie also has dyslexia, which impacted her growing up and still does, as she listens to audiobooks of required reading for school and takes a little longer to read Instagram captions. I loved the inclusion of these details. (Sophie is also such a big social anxiety mood.)

The story as a whole deals with the difficulties and problems of unrequited love, of feeling that someone "owes" you, and of having a codependent friendship that is perhaps no longer necessary and now unhealthy. The issues that arise are not glossed over (it maybe even goes a little further than necessary in exploring things). As the characters develop, they are pushed into new situations and ultimately grow as people...yeah, I don't want to say more without spoiling anything!

The atmosphere of the novel is also well-realized. It takes place in Seattle, and we come to know the families and home situations of both characters well. I particularly liked how they each had their own experiences with Judaism--Sophie isn't particularly religious, while Peter is half-Jewish and becomes interest in going to synagogue with his father. I also enjoyed the dynamic between Sophie and her sister, who is younger but has a one-year-old child. Also, this book made <a href="https://booksandbigideas.wordpress.com/2018/12/27/__trashed-8/">my "YA Books that Describe the Magic of Music" post</a> for a reason! Sophie is a choreographer and Peter is a pianist who becomes involved in a band, and I LOVED the many references and general vibe of the music scenes.

Lastly, <i>Our Year of Maybe</i> has a mature attitude toward teenage sexuality and relationships. It allows its characters to experience pleasure, and we LOVE consent! And discussions with parents! Peter is also bisexual and has known this--although he has never found the right time to mention it to Sophie. I liked this, but the simplified mentions of it were all of the "I like boys and girls" variety, without any mentions of those who fall outside of the gender binary (which, yes, many people who identify as bi are attracted to!). This is a pattern I'm noticing in quite a few reads and it's become frustrating.

So if you want a book that's addicting, heartbreaking, and moving, <i>Our Year of Maybe<i> is a great bet!