by Lucille de Mesa

THE STORY

Aiden’s stuck working for his family’s amusement park, Funtastic World, for the whole summer. Nothing amuses him, until he met this terrified girl. 
Gemma’s stuck in Funtastic World thinking she could handle the park’s rides. She couldn’t. Good thing she met someone to guide her.
As the day comes to a close, Aiden and Gemma ask themselves if one day is ever enough to decide if they were better off as friends or strangers. Read reviews: Goodreads

WHAT I LIKED

I expected What About Today to be a ‘light weekend read’ but then it had other ideas. On top of those was being a reminder of how it was to be 17: pressure, insecurities and frustrations. These were present in both Aiden and Gemma, which made it easy for me to relate to them, and I suppose for anybody at any age.

Aside from that, I also enjoyed spending a day at Funtastic World, which lived up to its name—fun and convincing, enough to bring you right there in the middle of a possibly life-altering ride.

Last, I liked how realistic the scenes were, making me think this story can happen to me. #realfeels

HOWEVER…

(Spoiler alert! Highlight succeeding text to read.) That ending, though. Much as I enjoy exercising my imagination, I wanted for the author to show me what happened after That Day. Did Gemma and Aiden become more than friends? Did Gemma return to Funtastic World for more rides? Did Aiden visit Gemma in school? Cliffhangers are great, yes, but this time, my desire to find out overrules everything. I need more than seven chapters!

tl;dr

This is the first time I’ve read a book by Dawn Lanuza, but I can already say I’m going to pick up her other ones, especially if the sequel for this one comes out. What About Today has set the bar for my local YA lit expectations! And speaking of local, this can be counted as ‘Any book with a green(ish) cover’ in the #BookbedReadsPHLit challenge. Enjoy! ☁