Signs Point to Yes // by Sandy Hall

//published 2015//

I read Hall’s debut book last year, A Little Something Different, and actually found it surprisingly enjoyable.  It was relaxing fluff,  happy and funny without a lot of angst, swearing, or sex.  Plus A+ cover!  However, Hall’s second book, Signs Point to Yes, was, quite frankly, terrible.  The story made no sense, every time any of the characters did anything it just seemed like the most ridiculous and unnatural action to me ever, relationships between the main characters and their parental figures were pretty bad and never resolved – and speaking of never resolved, this book just sort of stopped without actually fixing any of the issues.

We start the book with Jane, our main character, being all angsty and annoyed because her mom has just landed her (Jane) and unpaid internship at the small college where Jane’s mom works.  Jane, we find out, doesn’t want to work near/with her mom, doesn’t want to go to college, and really appears to just not want to grow up.  In a desperate attempt to find a good reason to reject the internship, Jane agrees to work as a babysitter for her neighbor.  With a paying job lined up, her mom gives up in the internship.

The neighbors consist of three little girls, their parents, and their half-brother (conveniently close to Jane’s age).  Once Jane starts her job, it’s basically just this long boring story about her crushing on Teo, Teo crushing on  Jane, and Teo wanting to find his birth dad, whom he’s never met.

Okay, from here forward, there will definitely be spoilers to the story, because it’s impossible to get up a really good rant for this type of book without some spoilers.  Personally, I think I’m going with a 1/5 for incredibly poor plotting and irrational characters/actions.  Still, ironically, I actually liked Jane and Teo has a pair and thought their relationship was the only thing about this entire book that even kind of made sense – but it just wasn’t enough to redeem the “story”.

So.  I’m going to try and break down my reasons for thinking this story was ridiculous.  Spoilers below.