Book Review: The Haters by Jesse Andrews

Book: The Haters
Author: Jesse Andrews
Published: April 5, 2016
Publisher: Amulet Books
Number of Pages: 352
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Rating: DNF
Tags: YA, ARC, DNF, Why?

Goodreads/Amazon/Barnes & Noble 

*My thanks to Amulet Books for providing me a copy of this book via NetGalley. While I did not finish this book, I will be reviewing the 23% I did read.*

Synopsis: From Jesse Andrews, author of the New York Times bestselling Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and screenwriter of the Sundance award–winning motion picture of the same name, comes a groundbreaking young adult novel about music, love, friendship, and freedom as three young musicians follow a quest to escape the law long enough to play the amazing show they hope (but also doubt) they have in them.

Inspired by the years he spent playing bass in a band himself, The Haters is Jesse Andrews’s road trip adventure about a trio of jazz-camp escapees who, against every realistic expectation, become a band.

For Wes and his best friend, Corey, jazz camp turns out to be lame. It’s pretty much all dudes talking in Jazz Voice. But then they jam with Ash, a charismatic girl with an unusual sound, and the three just click. It’s three and a half hours of pure musical magic, and Ash makes a decision: They need to hit the road. Because the road, not summer camp, is where bands get good. Before Wes and Corey know it, they’re in Ash’s SUV heading south, and The Haters Summer of Hate Tour has begun.

In his second novel, Andrews again brings his brilliant and distinctive voice to YA, in the perfect book for music lovers, fans of The Commitments and High Fidelity, or anyone who has ever loved—and hated—a song or a band. This witty, funny coming-of-age novel is contemporary fiction at its best. 

~My Review~ 

I can't do it. I tried, but this book is painful. This is going to be a short review because I only managed to read about 23% of the book, and I'm glad that I decided to stop. There were several things that made me put this book down, but there were three reasons that made me go through with it. One if the reasons being the characters. They were very bland. They were boring, unoriginal, and  they lacked common sense. Who leaves in the middle of the night, with a person they just met, limited money, and no cell phones to go play music for different places that don't know their coming? Why? That just spells out horrible idea. 

The humor was awful. It wasn't even funny. It was immature, and it only made me cringe. It felt pushed, and it wasn't natural. It wasn't what you would hear teenage boys in high school saying, it is what you would hear kids in middle school saying to annoy girls. It wasn't even a joke, and it was used over, and over, and over. So, if you think that people talking about how they want to inflict damage onto their own penises is funny (over, and over, and over), then you'll probably love the humor. 

And also there wasn't much going on with the actual story. I didn't see how the story could move on, and I honestly didn't want to read more of the same thing. So overall, I hated what I read of this book. I found the characters to be boring, their decisions stupid, the humor immature, and a boring story line made the book a very unpleasant experience.