Book Review: Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski

Contemporary teen fiction with romance, secrets, scandals, and ESP from the author of Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn't Have).We weren't always like this. We used to be average New York City high school sophomores. Until our homeroom went for flu shots. We were prepared for some side effects. Maybe a headache. Maybe a sore arm. We definitely didn't expect to get telepathic powers. But suddenly we could hear what everyone was thinking. Our friends. Our parents. Our crushes. Now we all know that Tess is in love with her best friend, Teddy. That Mackenzie cheated on Cooper. That, um, Nurse Carmichael used to be a stripper. Since we've kept our freakish skill a secret, we can sit next to the class brainiac and ace our tests. We can dump our boyfriends right before they dump us. We know what our friends really think of our jeans, our breath, our new bangs. We always know what's coming. Some of us will thrive. Some of us will crack. None of us will ever be the same. So stop obsessing about your ex. We're always listening.

Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski
on 2014-03-11
Published by Random House LLC Genres: General,Humorous Stories, Love & Romance, Social Issues,Young Adult
Pages: 320
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher on NetGallery



"Don't Even Think About It" by Sarah Mlynowski was definitely an interesting tale. Children who develop telepathic powers from a vaccine was a little out there. The synopsis pulled me into the storyline that I wanted to see what "Don't Even Think About It" was truly about, unfortunately I was disappointed. Almost an entire homeroom received the flu vaccination and the next day 11 students started out with the telepathic powers. As the day went on and even the next day, more students started to show symptoms of the powers.

The group of students decided to keep their new powers to themselves until the could figure out more of what was going on. Some of the students thought the new powers were good and others thought that they were an invasion of privacy. If everyone could read thoughts than how were they going to keep anything a secret. The nice thing about getting to read others thoughts is that you got to know what they were truly thinking or you could have the answers to your latest tests things like that.

I had a hard time become attached to any of these characters. They all seemed too whiny for my taste. This novel is focused on high school students and their love life problems. I thought it was a very mediocre tween novel. I felt like I was dragging my feet trying to get to the end. I was really disappointed that none of the characters were very interesting to me. My favorite part of books as most of my readers know is the characters. I want to be able to love them and get to know them, but these characters were just too whiny and immature for my taste. 

I don't want my distaste of the novel to stop others from reading it. I think this would be a great and easy read for middle school students. It is pretty PG. There is some kissing and maybe some inappropriate thoughts but there is no sex. One of the students over hears her parents thoughts as they are starting to have sex but was able to tune it out and ignore their thoughts. I think this could be a great read for middle school and high school readers, but I don't see adults being interested in this novel much.

I give "Don't Even Think About It" one out of five bookshelves.