Review-Step Up

Step Up by Monica McKayhan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was a really cute, YA novel. I was a little iffy on it at first, but it got more interesting as it went on.

I was kinda put off at first by the fact that the first couple chapters in the book are narrated by two of the main characters, Vance and Tameka. The reason this bothered me was because these two are not mentioned anywhere in the synopsis on the back of the book. Now I know all stories have subplots, but in this story it seemed more like this was Vance/Tameka's story, and Marcus/Indigo were the subplot and I would've liked for that to be mentioned in the book summary.

But I did get over that. Tameka is sixteen years old and pregnant with Vance's baby. Vance has gone off to Grambling State University for his freshman year at college. He makes all kinds of promises to Tameka before leaving, about how he loved her and would always be there for her and the baby. But you know what happens to folks once they get to college.

I really liked both characters of Vance and Tameka. Neither is perfect, and they were presented in a realistic manner and I didn't feel like either of them was wrong in this situation, just that they were both young and at the peak of their lives and made a mistake. I'm glad the story ended with both of them in a good place. The only thing I would've liked to know was if Tameka and Sean ever got together. He was a really sweet boy also, and I liked how nice he was to Tameka during their situation.

Then there was Marcus and Indigo's story, which mirrored Vance/Tameka's in that Marcus was going away during the summer for a program at Harvard University and leaving Indigo at home. Even though he wasn't a college student yet, he also got caught up in the new girls he met on campus. Mostly I found their story a little boring, especially since at first it was going to exact same way as Vance and Tameka's (minus the pregnancy of course). I did like Marcus' Korean roommate, Jae, whom Marcus was teaching slang to. In fact, the plot with Marcus and his roommates (Jae, Paul, Chris, and Derrick) was even a bit more interesting than his relationship with Indigo.

Anyways, I thought this was a good, interesting story that's a good eye-opener to how things can change when people are separated and when young adults begin college. I would definitely read more by this author and would want to read more about what happens with these characters.



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Source: Library
Challenges: 100 Books in a Year, YA Reading Challenge