The Promise of Amazing
by Robin Constantine
**SPOILERS**
I love a good romance book. You know, a good, easy, cute
book that you can escape into for a few hours that’ll make you smile. The Promise of Amazing is almost that type of book.
The
Promise of Amazing is told through alternating points of view, with every
other chapter belonging to either Wren Caswell or Grayson Barrett. It takes
place during the characters’ junior year, where Wren and Grayson first meet.
They wouldn’t have run into each other had Wren not gone to work at her
family’s catering hall after being annoyed at her guidance counselor’s “no one
is going to Harvard,” pep talk.
It’s a cute idea when you consider the whole opposites
attract thing, but just a glance at the YA shelf will prove that there are more
than enough books about the bad boy and good girl falling insta-in-love. It
started out cutely, as though their romance might be a real high school dating story, but that soon changed. When a book
revolves around the romance connection, it needs to be believable; I could buy it
if it was a story of dating casually to see if the two fit together, but not one
about falling in love at first sight.
Of course, both Wren and Grayson deal with demons from
their pasts that they must face. One of Grayson’s troubles is certainly unique
(spoiler alert): he got expelled from St. Gabe’s for being a “term paper pimp,”
but there are other demons that do not work as well in this story. For one,
Grayson’s old friends seem like total jerks, and I could never quite understand
Grayson’s motivations for doing what they wanted when he knew it wouldn’t end
well. However, he did have a clear character arc in that the readers realize
that Grayson at the end of the book isn’t the same person from the beginning of
the book. Wren, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to change very much. Her main
concern (aside from Grayson) is that she is too quiet, but any time she gets a
chance to put herself out there, it is only through others’ doing. Furthermore,
when conflict between Wren and Grayson occurrs, it always ends with Wren taking
Grayson back, without much of—if any—explanation. And the ending is just too
neat: characters completely change for the better with no prompting and no
explanations, and everyone gets what they wanted. Even Grayson and Luke—who
caused most of the issues between Grayson and Wren—make convenient amends. As picture-perfect
as that seems, I’m sure we can all agree that reality doesn’t usually have such
neatly tied-up ends.
However, I did enjoy the writing of this book.
Constantine is engaging and interesting, and even the dialogue seems natural.
On the whole, though, for a novel that hinges on the romance between two
characters, it felt forced. The plot of this romance really can’t stand alone
when the romantic connection between the two characters isn’t believable.
By: Ashley Noelle
