99 Days

by Katie Cotugno

Overview

From the acclaimed author of How to Love comes another stunning contemporary novel, perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen.

Molly Barlow is facing one long, hot summer—99 days—with the boy whose heart she broke and the boy she broke it for . . . his brother.

Day 1: Julia Donnelly eggs my house my first night back in Star Lake, and that's how I know everyone still remembers everything. She has every right to hate me, of course: I broke Patrick Donnelly's heart the night everything happened with his brother, Gabe. Now I'm serving out my summer like a jail sentence: Just ninety-nine days till I can leave for college and be done.

Day 4: A nasty note on my windshield makes it clear Julia isn't finished. I'm expecting a fight when someone taps me on the shoulder, but it's just Gabe, home from college and actually happy to see me. "For what it's worth, Molly Barlow," he says, "I'm really glad you're back."

Day 12: Gabe wouldn't quit till he got me to come to this party, and I'm surprised to find I'm actually having fun. I think he's about to kiss me—and that's when I see Patrick. My Patrick, who's supposed to be clear across the country. My Patrick, who's never going to forgive me.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062216403
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	04/21/2015
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	13,755
Lexile:	940L (what's this?)
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Katie Cotugno is the New York Times bestselling author of Top Ten, Fireworks, 99 Days, and How to Love. She studied writing, literature, and publishing at Emerson College and received her MFA in fiction at Lesley University. Katie is a Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has appeared in Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, and Argestes, among others. She lives in Boston with her husband, Tom. www.katiecotugno.com

Editorial Reviews

02/09/2015
Molly Barlow has a complicated history with the Donnelly siblings: Patrick was her first love, but then she hooked up with his brother, Gabe, enraging sister Julia, Molly’s onetime friend. Making matters worse, her mother wrote a thinly veiled bestselling novel about Molly’s love triangle with the brothers, which resulted in Molly skipping town to attend boarding school. Now she’s back in Star Lake and taking abuse from all sides—except from Gabe and Tess, Patrick’s current girlfriend. Soon, Molly and Gabe’s romance has reignited, even as she’s getting dirty looks from his family, hanging out with Tess, and going running with Patrick. Setting her novel over the “99 days” of summer before Molly starts college, Cotugno (How to Love) explores the powerful bonds that arise between childhood friends who grow up to discover romance, as well as the intense rivalry between brothers. Societal double standards that label girls as promiscuous while boys get off scot-free are front and center in a thought-provoking story that will leave readers thinking about the guilt and shame that are often unfairly attached to sex. Ages 13–up. Agency: Alloy Entertainment. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for HOW TO LOVE: “Cotugno’s debut ambitiously, and intriguingly, follows a couple who fall in love twice, over two different time periods.

Booklist

Praise for HOW TO LOVE: “A vibrant, sparkling narrative of first love and second chances - will remind you that love isn’t ever easy, but falling for a great story is.

Entertainment Weekly

Praise for HOW TO LOVE: “HOW TO LOVE is epic. I crushed so hard on this book. A roller coaster ride with all the euphoric highs and the stomach-dropping lows of falling in love. The writing is as beautiful as the love story. I adored it!

Siobhan Vivian

Praise for HOW TO LOVE: “There are those novels, once in a spectacular blue moon, that just feel perfect. HOW TO LOVE is that book. Perfect.

Carolyn Mackler

A complicated, compelling summer romance…and a whole lot of kissing make[s] this one to stick in the beach bag.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

As a teen living in a small town with a Mom who is a fiction author suffering writer’s block, it is only a matter of time before her life is an open book. Molly and Julia have been best friends from the very first day they met and not long after, she is also best friends with Julia’s brother Patrick. Even in elementary school, Patrick and Molly were inseparable, sharing homework, dinners at Patrick’s, movies, and most of life. Molly receives an offer to play sports at an exclusive boarding school for her senior year and things with Patrick began to fall apart. He is unable to talk to her about the possibility of being apart their senior year. Molly turns to Patrick’s brother, Gabe, who was older and willing to listen, and becomes romantically involved with him. She eventually shares things with her mom…and her mom shares it with the world. Molly’s love life becomes the story that puts her mom back on the best seller list and Molly on the road to boarding school. All this is recounted as Molly is home for the summer (ninety-nine days) before college, hoping to put all things right. Restoring relationships with Patrick, Julia, Gabe, and their mom may prove too much to accomplish in ninety-nine short days. Cotugno has written a story about love, relationships, forgiveness, loyalty, and bullying. These emotions and attitudes are familiar to the teen reader, who will root for the characters to find a way back to their beginnings. This well-written young adult novel, a 2011 Pushcart prize nominee, should find its way to every high school collection. Reviewer: Joyce Rice; Ages 12 up.

Children's Literature - Joyce Rice

Instead of coming back from her senior year at boarding school to happy reunions with old friends and family, Molly Barlow finds herself in the same mess she left a year ago. Since her mother’s book exposed Molly’s complicated relationship with Patrick and Gabe Donnelly, former friends are now indifferent or openly hostile to her, her relationship with her mother is icy, and Molly just wants to hide in her room for the ninety-nine days until she leaves for college. An unexpected job, however, means that both Donnelly boys are back in her life, and Molly must figure out how to get through the summer and deal with the people and situations she ran away from. Molly is a believable teen character, struggling to figure out what she wants. Readers may feel frustrated that Molly makes the same mistake repeatedly, but they will be able to relate to the struggles of breaking free from the past and dealing with the after effects of getting caught up in the moment. While the first-person narration means that the other characters’ motivations are often unclear, Cotugno successfully gets inside Molly’s head; her internal reactions when she hooks up with Patrick while dating Gabe are particularly resonant. The writing is, at times, repetitive, using the same descriptive phrases and metaphors in multiple situations. Overall, this is a good choice for collections where romance is popular. Recommend it to fans of Sarah Dessen, Lauren Barnholdt, and the like. Reviewer: Bethany Martin; Ages 15 to 18.

VOYA, April 2015 (Vol. 38, No. 1) - Bethany Martin

02/01/2015
Gr 9 Up—Molly Barlow is back in her hometown near the Catskill Mountains. A year ago, Molly fled to a faraway boarding school in the wake of a disastrous betrayal that left her the most hated girl in town. Now that she's back, all of her fears are justified—the girls who used to be her friends want nothing to do with her, especially not the Donnelly siblings, who used to be her closest friends. The teen plans to lie low and wait out the rest of the summer until she can escape and start over in college. She is getting used to all the bullying, when the arrival of the two Donnelly boys turns her world upside-down. Patrick, Molly's first boyfriend, has a new girlfriend who doesn't seem to hate Molly despite her past transgressions. And Gabe is there for her when nobody else seems to care if she exists. When Gabe wants to spark up a romance, Molly starts to feel like she may be able to right some wrongs and put her past behind her. But things are never simple, and Molly finds herself dreading as well as clamoring for the 99 days of summer to be over. This coming-of-age story is dramatic and wickedly funny, and the protagonist's voice will speak to any teen facing an uncertain future. VERDICT This book will appeal to fans of E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks (Hyperion, 2008), offering complex characters, plot twists, and an insightful look at society's double standards.—Tara Kron, School Library Journal

School Library Journal

2015-01-10
A teenage girl spends the summer doing penance for her romances with two boys. The problem was—and still is—they're brothers.Molly's summer of 99 days looks bleak. Because of her indiscretions, her relationship with her best friend is strained, she's ostracized by her peers, and she feels like she's lost her second family, the Donnellys. She's also resentful of her fiction-writer mother, who spilled the beans by making a best-seller out of Molly's confession of impropriety to her. And now, after her senior year away at a boarding school, Molly's back in her hometown, trying her best to hide out before she leaves for college. The first night back, Julia Donnelly, protective sister of Molly's love interests, brothers Gabe and Patrick, eggs her house. Molly soon runs into Gabe and tentatively starts seeing him while trying her best to avoid run-ins with Patrick, whom she left brokenhearted. But when she sees Patrick with a girlfriend, she is discombobulated by her own feelings; she struggles with twin guilts: from hurting him as well as her own desires. Molly's emotional growth is the strong propeller of the plot; she's a totally engaging, multifaceted character. Kind and with a quirky sense of humor, she's also precociously stalwart in the face of Julia's unrelenting torment and others' constant scrutiny. Drama-filled flashbacks fill in the dots of the back story. A fascinating story of adolescent love and betrayal. (Romance. 13 & up)

Kirkus Reviews