I first came across this book on a Facebook post, a local bookseller promoting it. Young Adult coming of age stories are my jam, so when I found it at my local bookstore, and got a recommendation from a friend, I just had to read it. When I saw it appear on my NetGalley dashboard, I used it as an excuse to revisit this wonderful story.

Natalie was totally neurotic, and endearing, and other than the acne scarring, I saw a lot of parallels from my life and the way my brain works to hers. She could be me, in another life.

“I hate you, I love you, I want to slap you”

I’m sure I’ve said this in my head hundreds of times...

“Natalie, you know exactly what you want, all the time, but you hide it under all these layers of bullshit, and you make it impossible for anyone else to figure out.”

This.Is.So.Me!

There’s also something magical about books set in your home city, even if there’s not a huge amount of name (street, suburb, businesses) dropping, there’s still a connection.

It Sounded Better in my Head was warm, and giggle-out-loud funny, and I cannot believe that it’s a debut, because it just flows so well. I loved it, and devoured it, and it was over way too soon!

Thank you to Nina Kenwood, Text Publishing, and NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

✨ ARC received in exchange for honest review from netgalley.co.uk ✨
‘It Sounded Better In My Head’ is a YA coming-of-age romance set in Australia. Natalie finds out on Christmas Day that her parents have been secretly separated for 10 months and will be moving out of her family home. It’s even harder to process her parents splitting up when her best friends Zach & Lucy are so loved up. Waiting to hear which university she will be going to is also playing on Natalie’s mind, all her friends know what they want to do and she has no idea yet.
This heartwarming story explores the physical and emotional challenges of puberty, the issue of your friends growing up and moving on and deciding when it’s the right time to lose your virginity. A real struggle for Natalie is her skin, suffering from acne as a result of suspected Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, it really affects her confidence and mental health in ways the people around her don’t seem to understand. Each of the characters in this story were stereotypically ‘perfect’ in one way or another but as the story developed you were able to see they were all struggling beneath the surface.
The romance in this novel worked well for me and even though there was bickering and fall outs the pair were able to communicate honestly and quickly to resolve their problems which felt realistic and healthy. At the beginning it feels as though there’s a love triangle between Natalie, Zach & Lucy which didn’t work for me. We get some backstory into the friendship of Lucy & Natalie which developed them as characters but Zach didn’t get the same treatment and came off as overly possessive of Natalie when he had no reason to be.
It is a YA novel and as a 23 year old there were some dialogue passages which made me cringe such as Natalie and her mum talking about Dirty Dancing. I understand Zach & Lucy were meant to be parental figures but this was pushed too far at points and was a bit unnatural. However, if I was reading this in high school I think I wouldn’t have paid much attention to these issues.
I read this in one sitting, so easy to fly through and a refreshingly mature take on topics that are covered so often in YA fiction. Would highly recommend and can’t wait to see what the author brings out next! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It Sounded Better In My Head by Nina Kenwood is an excellent YA fiction, that while labeled YA, could honestly identify with readers with a broad age range.

The concepts of finding out who you are, what you want out of life, what are your priorities, are all things we all can identity with, no matter the age.

I enjoyed the pace and the ending. The characters were relatable and were a joy to read. I enjoyed Natalie and getting to be placed inside her head to follow along with her thought processes. I would actually enjoy a follow up to this, as I think the story could be continued (Which is a compliment).

Thank you NetGalley and Text Publishing for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.

This book was absolutely amazing. I cannot even put into words how much I love this book. I sped through it in one sitting, as was left with a major book hangover once I was done.

The way it's written is incredible, the protagonist is extremely relatable and I honestly felt like I was reading about myself.

While it was released last year, this has definitely been my favourite read of 2020 so far.

It Sounded Better in My Head by Nina Kenwood follows Natalie as she deals with coming to terms with her parents impending divorce, her two best friends’ unexpected blooming relationship, and just growing up as her own person. Natalia battles her own insecurities as well as the uncertainty of what the future holds. This book explores the raw, pure awkwardness of growing up and having to deal with change- even when you yourself are not ready for it.

Overall this was a good read. It was ridiculously realistic at times that I sometimes felt like the author had picked situations in my own personal life and wrote an entire book about it. Natalie is in the beautiful awkward age of 15 and like every 15 year old, Natalie is currently experiencing low self-esteem and feeling like an outsider in her own body. It may seem like Natalie puts herself down way too much during the book, but that’s what makes her character realistic, and this problem is actually relevant to the theme of the novel, and not quirky relatable characteristic that was given to her “just because”. So thank you, author!

I loved Natalie’s inner monologue. It was childish at times, but you have to remember that she’s 15 and is at an awkward stage in her life. This book is one you can just fly through and take a trip down memory lane at the same time. The romance in this book perfectly summarises the first love experience- awaiting his reply to your latest text to thinking about him 24/7. Its cute and its cheesy but its still painfully realistic.

3 stars.

Thank you NetGalley and Text Publishing for providing me with an advanced reader's copy of It Sounded Better In My Head by Nina Kenwood.

4.5 stars. So charming, such a great authentic voice, transports you right back to the in between time after high school, before college. I loved this!

It Sounded Better In My Head is the first novel by Australian author, Nina Kenwood, and winner of the 2018 Text Prize of YA and Children’s Writing. When Natalie’s father announces on Christmas Day that he and her mother are separating, it’s a shock. This news, and their infuriatingly calm manner of imparting it, is almost eclipsed, however, by the fact that they kept this from her for ten months. Her world (already somewhat disordered when her two best friends, Zach and Lucy decided they were in love) has now turned upside down.

Further disruptions to her reassuringly predictable, neatly mapped-out life are not welcome, and when Alex decides to take a romantic interest in Natalie, she’s wary, even sceptical: surely he’s not genuinely interested; there must be some other motive. An added complication is that Alex is Zach’s older brother, and Zach is uncomfortable with the whole situation for a number of reasons, only one of which doesn’t totally irritate Natalie.

Kenwood gives the reader a cast of very believable characters who are appealing for all their flaws and quirks. Eighteen-year-old Natalie is, as Zach says, “smart, funny and interesting”. Kenwood includes lots of entertaining dialogue which means that readers should avoid reading this novel in the quiet carriage on public transport as the inevitable laughing out loud might disturb other travellers, but this also means it would make an excellent telemovie.

For the extremely fortunate many who will never suffer it, in Natalie’s description of her experience with cystic acne Kenwood shines a spotlight on the effects, both physical and psychological, of this devastating condition: “...pimples that turned, almost overnight, into deep cystic acne. Thick, hard, welt-like lumps formed under my skin on my back, shoulders, neck and face... It was gross. I was gross. I woke up every day thinking that for a long time.”

In particular, thoughtless, uninformed or downright nasty comments from strangers about appearance undermine self-esteem: “My body was a shameful disaster. I was too embarrassed to go outside unless I absolutely had to. No, it was worse than that. I was too embarrassed to exist” to the extent that Natalie actually decides “…’my parents are splitting up’ is a refreshingly normal and acceptable problem to have, and it’s far less embarrassing than an ‘I-have-an-infected-pimple-that’s-so-huge-and-disfiguring-that-it-has-sent-me-into-a-spiral-of-depression-so-I-won’t-be-getting-out-of-bed-today kind of issue’”

So Natalie’s anxiety over what could be her first love (and possibly first sex) is, naturally, enhanced by her insecurity, and her second-guessing just about every social interaction is hardly unexpected. Her voice is genuine, often self-deprecating, and her inner monologue oscillates between hilarious and heart breaking.

While it is labelled Young Adult and will definitely appeal to that age group, that does not mean that older adults will not enjoy it. This is an outstanding debut novel; if you've overdosed on psychological thrillers lately, take a break with this delightfully fresh and funny feel-good story.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Text Publishing