Changes in Latitudes by Jen Malone
Changes in Latitudes tells the story of Cassie, who is dragged to a ship during summer by her mother and her younger brother, Drew, to bond with the family all the way from Oregon to Mexico. But she is so pissed at her family because she had already made plans with her best friends to tour the country visiting universities, besides, she has been mad at her mother ever since the divorce, which left her father all the way in Hong Kong. So, when her mother makes her get on the boat, she is ready to ignore everyone and live her days in the small room she has, which has a refrigerator underneath her bed. But that is until she meets Jonah, a charming and funny 18-year old that is ready to make Cassie blush. After a fateful meeting with Jonah, she returns to her ship, to find that Jonah will be joining them during her whole trip. In the beginning, they are glad to be around each other because they are the only teenagers on the trip, but suddenly, the friendship they share starts turning into something else.
Jonah and Cassie will be running around cities and islands riding roller coasters, watching birds, eating the most delicious food and most importantly, falling in love with each other.
Cassie will get the chance to discover herself in the ocean with her loved ones.
One thing that I really liked about the story was that it was unique, you don´t really read summer romances that take place on a boat. So, I definitely give credit for that because it gets tiring to read a novel with similar settings. I enjoyed the story in general, but I did think that it was a bit slow, I remember that Jonah doesn't even appear for the first 100 pages of the novel, which for me is a lot of time, so it is a novel that goes by slowly.
I loved the adventures that it included because they were sweet and funny, but I think that during the novel there wasn´t a lot of them like I expected because I love reading about adventures and funny moments.
And although the novel didn´t really meet all of my expectations, I will admit that the story is really fun to read and there were moments that I was about to laugh out loud and the small moments that the characters shared made me smile like a crazy girl during class.
On the other hand, I really liked the characters.
Jonah Abrahamson is definitely a character that I would categorize as swoony, he is a gigantic flirt and he is funny and sweet. So, yes, he is like the perfect boyfriend you can imagine. Also, he is so philosophical about everything that you will end up learning and discover new things about our daily lives. At first, I didn´t really love him, I mean, I just liked him because he was funny and stuff, but after reading the novel and keeping up with Jonah, I started to get used to him and finding him more normal and natural, kind of like in real life. There are many people that at first, you are not so sure about, but you kind of start getting used to them and how they act that some of the little things they do start to feel part of them and somehow part of you, so I really liked how Malone portrayed him since he felt very human-like, which was a very different aspect in a summery YA novel.
I liked Cassie because she is the type of person that keeps all of her emotions bottled up inside and I believe that most of us are like that too, so Cassie was a character that most of us could relate to, at least a little bit, and I think that´s a very good point because many of us will start liking the story more once we start identifying ourselves with a character. But at the same time, I found her a little bit annoying because she was too negative about everything, which made her a very immature character in my opinion. I mean, I can totally understand why she feels like that, but she had to realize that people around her were making an effort and I didn´t see that in her, so, I was a bit annoyed with her throughout the novel.
As I said before, I love Jen Malone´s reading in this novel too because she gets to mix dramatic moments with adventures and sweet characters that create a very comfortable atmosphere for readers.
I apologize for not having a lot to say about this novel, but I honestly believe that this is a very quick reading and that there are many sub-plots that I don´t want to give you spoilers!
But in general, Changes in Latitudes is a fun, flirty, dramatic and adventurous reading that will fill your heart with philosophical whispers.
