This review was first posted on Music, Books and Tea.Going Vintage was such a fun read! I definitely had a much better success with this buddy read with Rebekah than we did with Everneath. Going Vintage wasn’t a book that I was expecting to change my life, but it was definitely fun, enjoyable and just a generally nice book to read.I loved Mallory right from the very beginning of Going Vintage. She was certainly the kind of girl I would get on with, although if I had been in her situation, I highly doubt whether I would have gone to the extremes that she did when she denounced anything post-60’s, but it was definitely fun watching her attempt to do so! Plus, Mallory stuck with it and didn’t flake on the challenge straight away – it was hard for her but she more or less completed her challenge, which is certainly commendable. I really liked her interactions with Oliver too, she wrote him off as another Jeremy, but he was so much more than that, and I loved him for it. He’s certainly one of my favourite love interests that I’ve read about this year, probably because of how sincere he was. Oliver had me rooting for him and Mallory from when they were first thrown together in Going Vintage, and I wanted to see more of their developing relationship, but at the same time, it made a huge change to read a fun YA contemporary that didn’t focus solely on the romance. This really sets Going Vintage apart from other books in the genre. That’s not to say that there isn’t romance in this book, because there is, but the book focuses on so many other themes instead.Mallory’s family were certainly interesting characters. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them, and I really struggled to warm to them until the end of the book when they (finally) stopped keeping secrets from one another. It was good to see Ginnie, Mallory’s younger sister, give her a wake up call and call her out on never giving everything 100% – sometimes people need to hear that kind of thing from someone they love, and seeing it included in Going Vintage made the family dynamic so much more realistic, because even the siblings with the best relationships fight sometimes. I wasn’t expecting the twist towards the end regarding Mallory’s grandmother. So many times I’m proved right with my predictions, so it made a nice change to be proved wrong!Mallory’s trip into the 60’s wasn’t what I was expecting it to be, and I liked that. I love it when a book takes me in a direction that I wasn’t expecting it to, and Going Vintage certainly did that. Would I have been able to do what Mallory did? No. I know that for sure! How would I blog, for a start?Lindsey Leavitt took me on an enjoyable journey, not quite into the 60’s, but as close as a modern day contemporary can! I’m looking forward to reading her other work as her writing was fun and sprinkled with little bits of humour here and there. If you’re looking for a fun book to while away an afternoon, look no further than this one!
