Book: Night Owls
Author: Jenn Bennett
Pages: 304 (Paperback)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: August 13th, 2015
Synopsis:
Meeting Jack on the Owl – San Francisco’s night bus – turns Beatrix’s world upside down. Jack is charming, wildly attractive . . . and possibly one of San Francisco’s most notorious graffiti artists. On midnight rides and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who this enigmatic boy really is. But Jack is hiding much more – and can she uncover the truth that leaves him so wounded?
Source: Simon & Schuster
My opinion:
Before I started this book, I thought this was going to be a nice, cutesy and light summer read, but damn, I was wrong. I was positively surprised by the depth of Night Owls, a story about completely different teenagers. Beatrix, who got an award for never missing school and has superb grades, who is from a relatively poor family. Jack, living in a million-dollar house, being a bad boy. What connects them in the first place is art. Though they do very different types of art: drawing anatomy on the one hand and spray paint illegally on the other.
And even though both characters are stereotypes, I enjoyed reading about them so much. Jack is that typical attractive bad boy who is actually super soft and has a very noble reason for his graffiti. Beatrix meanwhile is the careerist. The thing that really is not typical for such a character is the drawing of literal dead bodies. This is not only her hobby but her career wish and she is ambitious and talented and I love it. But they have a wonderful dynamic. Jack really is super nice. He doesn’t even have a bad look + nice core, he is very, very sweet and caring, and so is Beatrix. And they genuinely care for each other, but they also care about themselves and about their families. I loved reading about all of their relationships and how they interacted with each other. There was also the bitchy-and-jealous-girl-trope, but the book showed girls sticking up for each other as well. Plus healthy and good boy-boy friendships as well. And, very important too: mentally ill character (schizophrenia). And it was very well shown how the people around that schizophrenic character interacted with them, how they- and the person themselves- dealt with the illness. In my opinion, Jenn Bennett worked out that part especially well.
I also enjoyed the plot. Some of the things I didn’t understand because I was never really interested in San Francisco and had to read some stuff up, but that worked out well in the end. The story of the two protagonists was really fun and interesting to read, the setting was awesome as well, portraying light and dark sides of the life in the city and portrays broken and mended families as well.
So, even though there were a lot of stereotypical things and quite a few things where I rolled my eyes, I enjoyed this book immensely and read it in only a day.
Rating:
★★★/5
