Soulmates – Holly Bourne

This is the second Holly Bourne book that I have read but this is her debut novel.
Its the story of Poppy, a fairly cynical 17 year old girl living in Middletown, a very suburban town somewhere in England. Poppy has a generic group of friends that we can all relate too; Lizzie the supportive writer, Ruth the cleavage flashing flirt and Amanda the shy one who has an equally shy but devoted boyfriend. They go to college, hang out in coffee shops and once every couple of weeks they go to the local club and watch a band. This could be mine (or your) teenage life.
The difference is that there is something wrong with Poppy. She keeps having these blackouts and fainting spells where she thinks she is going to die. Other than that Poppy is pretty bored with her life and wants something interesting to happen. oh, also she isn’t interested in boys because there isn’t any in Middletown that can live up to her expectations. Until one night when Lizzie tells her that there is a new band playing at band night, Growing Pains, and the lead guitarist is ‘fit’, so they must all go, drink lots of rum and coke and check him out. Of course Ruth flashes her cleavage and thinks she will win the prize but Noah (for this is the fit guitarists name) stares longingly at Poppy instead and, bam, a chain reaction is started.
There were bits that I really liked; she is a fantastic writer and her descriptions and sense of place are really good. The end did also make me cry (but don’t tell anyone!) but, and it is a massive but, you can tell that this is a debut novel by the quality of the writing. Also, the amount of times that she tells us that Noah is beautiful and stunning and amazing did get a bit tedious. The premise is good; two people that are soulmates that could also destroy the world if they have sex, awkward much?! It has a lot of potential and maybe it’s one of those books that she will look back and think ‘I wish I could rewrite that with a little less cheese’.
Having said all that, it was an enjoyable read and I cannot rave enough about this author, she is brilliant. She can really make you experience that feeling of falling in love and the dream like quality of it. And wouldn’t we all like to think that there was someone out there that was made specifically to love only us, unconditionally, forever? without the world being destroyed obviously!
Read it, as the blurb says, it will make you cry (I won’t tell anyone…)