First & Then - Emma Mills

Review by Coll
4 Stars

Okay I am just going to come right out and say it, I really liked this book. The entire time I was reading it I could not understand the affection I was feeling towards it. I am Colleen, Queen of All Things Horror, sci-fi extraordinaire and fantasy fanatic. So how could I be so into a YA, contemporary “romance” book?  But I was. (I put romance in quotes because I didn’t look at the book as straight-up romance.)

First & Then follows high school student, Devon Tennyson, through the first few months of her senior year. Devon is not the popular girl nor is she the outcast, she is a normal girl stuck in the middle trying to navigate family, friendships, the prospect of college, and growing up. The story is a modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice but with high school students. Oh and football. It is described as Pride & Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights and I found that to be pretty damn accurate. Devon also has a slight obsession with Jane Austen and often contemplates how she would have handled modern high school life, which was cute for the most part but I will say it got slightly overbearing at times. 

First & Then is very relatable. As I was reading it I would have flashbacks to my high school years and how so many of the things Devon was going through were things I experienced. Only with the exception that she was way cooler than me. That is actually one part of the book I had a few issues with. Well, not that she was cooler than me (I accept that), but that this regular girl was able to get along with every person she went to school with, whether they were the football captain, the hot guy, the cool girl, etc. Most people who were unpopular in high school would have to admit that this is slightly unrealistic. Or, maybe I was just way more unpopular than I thought. Who knows? What I loved about First & Then was how, in the end, the message was to take the time to see people as they really are and not listen to the things we are told about them or hear about them. 

One thing about the book that some people might take issue with is a lot of moments brought up do not get clarification or closure. For example, a character who has a complicated, underlying story to their life is not focused on and is only seen once or twice and we never find out more about them. Things like that pop up a lot in the book. If you think about it though, this is the story of a few months of a high school girl’s life and people had momentary impacts on her but their time is fleeting. And in reality that is kind of how it goes sometimes, especially in high school. So it did not concern me much but I could see how it might be bothersome.

When I finished the book I was stuck between giving it 3 ½ or 4 stars, but I decided to go with 4 after some mental debate with myself. I guess what it all came down to is I really had a good time reading First & Then. It is not ground-breaking literature but it is very readable and very relatable. It is a cute modern rendition of Pride and Prejudice, a quick read and has its “awe” moments and instances of emotion and frustration. And in the end what did I learn from all this? I can be a tattooed chick that is super into horror and sci-fi and still get sucked in by a YA contemporary “romance book”. And you know what? I am okay with that.

"Close your eyes, real tight, and then count to three hundred. That's all you have to do. You just count to three hundred, and when you open your eyes, five minutes will have passed. And even if it hurts or things are shitty or you don't know what to do, you just made it through five whole minutes. And when it feels like you can't go on, you just close your eyes and do it again. That's all you need. Just five minutes at a time."

Interested in First & Then? Check it out on Goodreads.