Friday, February 5, 2016
Review: The Distance From A to Z by Natalie Blitt

Published by Epic Reads on 12 January 2016
Genres: Adolescence, Contemporary Romance, Emotions & Feelings, Friendship, Love & Romance, People & Places, Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance, Sports & Athletics, Young Adult
Pages: 316
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss
Buy on Amazon|Buy on Barnes & Noble
Goodreads

Place(s) Traveled To: Merritt, New Hampshire // Montreal, Canada
First Line(s): It starts when Jed makes the final turn off I-495.
From the moment I first heard about THE DISTANCE FROM A TO Z by Natalie Blitt I was curious about it. And with a pitch like this “perfect blend of Stephanie Perkins and Miranda Kenneally that proves the age-old adage: opposites attract” it made it even harder to resist. It also didn’t hurt that my friend Andi at Andi’s ABCs who is a HUGE fan of both Perkin’s and Kenneally loved DISTANCE FROM A TO Z. So I picked it up with high expectations and then found myself disappointed in the end result. I think that I wanted to love it so much that it was just hard for this story to meet those expectations.
My main problem with DISTANCE FROM A TO Z was Abby, our heroine. This girl had a chip on her should a mile wide and just as high. She was so judgmental of everyone around her and was often mean to others as well. Well, not to everyone, mostly to Zeke. THE DISTANCE FROM A TO Z is billed as an opposites attract story but in reality Abby and Zeke have a lot in common. She just has this irrational hatred towards baseball that drives a wedge between her and anyone around her that happens to like the sport. A sport that she once loved as well since she grew up in a baseball fanatic sports store owning family until she had some bad experiences dating baseball players.
There is much I could say about Abby and her baseball issues but I won’t get into all of them here as there just isn’t enough space. Let’s just say that Abby often rubbed me the wrong way and leave it at that. Zeke though, Zeke was a sweetheart and I don’t get why he put up with Abby and her shenanigans but he did and that makes me love him even more. Even if he had a hard time choosing a baseball team to like. It kind of bothered me a bit that he’d wear the shirts/hats of every team and while there is kind of a reason for it, its not enough of one to satisfy me. A person usually is a fan of one team and you don’t intermingle the gear. It just isn’t done.
THE DISTANCE FROM A TO Z is a fairly quick read and its one that I would have finished faster if Abby didn’t bug me as much as she did. What kept me reading was Zeke and the promise of a good story when I hit the end. While I didn’t love THE DISTANCE FROM A TO Z as much as some I still mostly enjoyed the book. If Abby had been a little less mean and judgmental then I probably would have rated this higher than I did. I also really liked Natalie Blitt’s writing and I know that she’s an author that I look forward to reading more stories from. And I think that you will like this book, as well as her future reads as well. So go on….head over to Amazon and one-click this one today.
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