Review: Past Perfect

Past Perfect, by Leila Sales. The GoodReads summary:

All Chelsea wants to do this summer is hang out with her best friend, hone her talents as an ice cream connoisseur, and finally get over Ezra, the boy who broke her heart. But when Chelsea shows up for her summer job at Essex Historical Colonial Village (yes, really), it turns out Ezra’s working there too. Which makes moving on and forgetting Ezra a lot more complicated…even when Chelsea starts falling for someone new.

Maybe Chelsea should have known better than to think that a historical reenactment village could help her escape her past. But with Ezra all too present, and her new crush seeming all too off limits, all Chelsea knows is that she’s got a lot to figure out about love. Because those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it….

So on the one hand this book was cute and adorable, just like everyone said it was. Chelsea is funny and easy to relate to. And I love that she has a fantastic best friend--I mean, their goal for the summer is to become ice cream connoisseurs. How awesome is that? And I totally enjoyed the colonial reenactment village, which is a little weird for me, since in real life, they freak me out a little. But it made such a fun and unique setting for the book.

But on the other hand . . . I just didn’t get WHY Chelsea and everyone else were so invested in the “war” between the two reenactment villages to the point that people get injured and Chelsea starts lying to her friends. The whole time, I was just like, “WHO CARES?!?! It’s just a GAME!!!” And I feel like my inability to understand why the war was so important kept me from really loving this book--I rolled my eyes a few times too many to be able to claim that I thought this book lived up to all the hype.

But like I said at the beginning, I did generally enjoy the book--it just wasn’t quite all that I hoped it would be. And maybe it’s just my own fault for not being competitive enough to understand why winning the war was so important. So I still would recommend this book, but I think I would recommend Sales’s other book “Mostly Good Girls” a little more.