Delacorte
December 8, 2015
272 pages
add to Goodreads/buy from Book Depository/or Amazon
It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey...There were elements of The Trouble with Destiny that could have spelled trouble for me: While I understood why the Athenas needed to be on the cruise and a part of the competition, it seemed overly convenient that, of ten groups participating, two were from the same school. (With a third from their rival high school.) Maybe if that third group hadn't been mentioned or there was more said about the selection/criteria? Or, perhaps, it's just one of my pet peeves and no one else cared.
With her trusty baton and six insanely organized clipboards, drum major Liza Sanders is about to take Destiny by storm—the boat, that is. When Liza discovered that her beloved band was losing funding, she found Destiny, a luxury cruise ship complete with pools, midnight chocolate buffets, and a $25,000 spring break talent show prize.
Liza can’t imagine senior year without the band, and nothing will distract her from achieving victory. She’s therefore not interested when her old camp crush, Lenny, shows up on board, looking shockingly hipster-hot. And she’s especially not interested in Russ, the probably-as-dumb-as-he-is-cute prankster jock whose ex, Demi, happens be Liza’s ex–best friend and leader of the Athenas, a show choir that’s the band’s greatest competition.
But it’s not going to be smooth sailing. After the Destiny breaks down, all of Liza’s best-laid plans start to go awry. Liza likes to think of herself as an expert at almost everything, but when it comes to love, she’s about to find herself lost at sea.
The idea of a cruise itself, though, was quite fun. It removed the characters from their everyday life and location and gave them not only the ship itself, but its amenities, a more confined setting and took away any complications from home or families. It put the characters in a sort of bubble. A very large, quite well appointed bubble, but still a bubble.
Liza clearly did not need the isolation in order to focus on the band and how much they need to win; it seems to be all she can think about. At least, at first.
Her character was one that I don't know why, precisely, I liked, but I did. She is incredibly anxious, but you can tell how much she wants her band to succeed, to win. It is clear she cares about her friends and keeping their relationships, tie together going. Even if it does not always show itself in the best way. She was distracted much, much too easily by a boy and it seemed obvious - only not at all to Liza - how that was going to end.
Even with Liza's obliviousness and the predictability, I did really like her and the story was cute. Some of what Liza learned about herself and how she came to those conclusions, added a nice bit of something more to the story. It was not all that I was expecting but it was sweet and fun and our main character being a marching band's drum major was something unique and different that played into her character well.
received, via NetGalley, from publisher for an honest review
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