The Fragile Ordinary

By: Samantha Young

Narrated by: Elle Newlands

Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

I am Comet Caldwell.

And I sort of, kind of, absolutely hate my name.

People expect extraordinary things from a girl named Comet. That she’ll be effortlessly cool and light up a room the way a comet blazes across the sky.

But from the shyness that makes her book-character friends more appealing than real people to the parents whose indifference hurts more than an open wound, Comet has never wanted to be the center of attention. She can’t wait to graduate from her high school in Edinburgh, Scotland, where the only place she ever feels truly herself is on her anonymous poetry blog. But surely that will change once she leaves to attend university somewhere far, far away.

When new student Tobias King blazes in from America and shakes up the school, Comet thinks she’s got the bad boy figured out. Until they’re thrown together for a class assignment and begin to form an unlikely connection. Everything shifts in Comet’s ordinary world. Tobias has a dark past and runs with a tough crowd - and none of them are happy about his interest in Comet. Targeted by bullies and thrown into the spotlight, Comet and Tobias can go their separate ways....or take a risk on something extraordinary.

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Impossible Vastness of Us and the On Dublin Street series comes a heartfelt and beautiful new young adult novel, set in Scotland, about daring to dream and embracing who you are.

©2018 Samantha Young (P)2018 Harlequin Enterprises, Limited

Teenage angst at its best.And some serious stuff.

I really loved Comet and Tobias's story, their dynamics in friendship and budding love, as well as the reader' s Scottish accent and modulations of her voice. Along Comet and Tobias, there are also very well portrayed secondary characters, who all contribute to make The Fragile Ordinary a great listen.

Pretty Cute Book

I really liked the characters, but it was very predictable. Still, a really cute book

4 "Out of this World" Stars

Comet Caldwell lives a fragile existence. Separated from total loneliness only by her two best friends and her books, she sits on the fringes of total obscruity in school, and at home is dimmed under the brilliance of her artist mother and writer father.

With a name like Comet one would envisage a trailblazer. A loud and outgoing individual whose mantra would be to seize the day. In actual fact Comet is a girl whose teenage insecurities are compounded by the knowledge the friendship she has grown to rely on becomes more tentative by the day, and the “relationship” with her parents has ceased to exist. She’s long come to acknowledge her parents are selfish and self absorbed, but even so, it doesn’t stop the hurt she experiences every time they remind her how little they see her.

If nothing Comet is a girl with a plan. She loses herself in writing her poetry and has big dreams of moving to America for University. School is important to her and the arrival of an new American student in her classes brings disruption in more ways than one.

Tobias King causes a stir of excitement and the handsome American soon has most of the student body vying for his attention. He’s instantly popular and runs with a unsavoury crowd. Begrudging Comet acknowledges he’s a thing of beauty but she's less than impressed by his disruptive antics in class and his blatant displays of self sabotage. It’s a thing mortifying for her to be paired with him for a class project. She’s incredibly intimidated by him but as they spend more time together the lessons of the classroom pale in comparison to the lessons they learn about themselves.

THE FRAGILE ORDINARY is an explorative story that life, love and self realisation. Not only was it an incredibly emotional and inspiring read but also a stark reminder of the the care we need to take with one another. Comet is Heroine in the truest sense of the word, and we should be so lucky to have piece of her in all of us.