Some people just can’t stand each other. Kayla and Evan are definitely one of those people.It’s annoying enough that they are plane partners and have to sit next to each other through the entire flight to Italy for their senior class trip, but things go from bad to worse when their plane makes an emergency stop. Their lives unexpectedly change as soon as Kayla follows Evan into a dark corridor … corridor and, right after, things just escalate from worse to tragic.
“I won’t begin to suggest that I know what you’re feeling, but I know what it feels like to love someone who doesn’t love you back.”
To add icing to Kayla’s wretched cake, she finds out that that Ben, her perfect boyfriend, isn’t so perfect after all and has been hiding a basket full of dirty secrets from her. Dead set on getting back at him, she turns to the only person she thinks who is just as hurt as her and crazy enough to sign up and play along with her plan―Evan.
“Be my fake boyfriend, Evan Winters. I promise never to love you, care for you or…well…you get the idea.”
But they’re just pretending. Except when one of them is suddenly isn’t…
A freak storm, stolen chickens, a language barrier and a big adventure. The senior trip of their life. But will they ever be the same people once they go back?
Find out in this unexpected romantic comedy that has Kayla and Evan butting heads as they meet interesting people, end up in jail, learn valuable les-sons, and experience heartaches and new beginnings—together.
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4.0 Star Review The Best Part of Hello by Hollie Armstrong
Audio Review:
Both the author Hollie Armstrong and narrator Sarah Sampino were new to me. This one was a bit out of my comfort zone as I do not normally read or listen to New/Young adult. However I went into it with and open mind and was pleasantly surprised.
The story was engaging and drew me in from the start. The narration was very good and enhanced my enjoyment of the story.
This was a story filled with suspense, drama and emotions that plenty of chemistry sizzling between Kayla and Evan. There was also plenty of humour which had many laugh out loud moments whilst I was listening.
An enemies to friends to so much more this was a good story and I look forward to reading/ listening to more from Hollie Armstrong and narrator Sarah Sampino
The Best Part of Hello was my first Hollie Armstrong novel. This clean YA novel held my interest until the very end and I very much enjoyed the story. The characters were likable and very much relatable and it was interesting to see their development after the situation they were thrust into. This novel included both enemies to lovers and fake relationship tropes into one fascinating story. I enjoyed it and would highly recommend it to all lovers of YA romance.
The audible version of this story was narrated by Sarah Sampino. She did a fantastic job with the narration of these characters. She was able to portray varying voices and personalities for the different characters and really brought the story to life. I absolutely loved listening to her narrate this book.
AudiobookObsession
This story is intense.Going on a senior school trip should be fun, enlightening not fearful and full of tragedy. Kayla Has more experiences in life in that short time , than what she could handle. She started out as fun loving and adventurous, coming home broken hearted , broken spirited, and withdrawn. The Hollie Armstrong touches on the subject of depression and how getting help is important. She did an amazing job developing the story and building the relationship between Kayla and Evan. its a story of love , trust, betrayal, lies , hope and despair. Sarah Sampino narration is excellent in this story. She is a great voice performer, depicting all the emotions, accents and giving each character their own personality and bring the story to life. I was gifted this audiobook in exchange for an honest review
Let me preface by saying that I am not a young adult, but nonetheless, I truly enjoyed this book. Tapping into the emotions from my teenage years, I felt Kayla’s desolation in finding out her boyfriend had betrayed her. I remembered the annoyance of that one boy who irritated to no end and wishing he would just disappear. I also felt the disappointment of a long-awaited for class trip to Europe, thwarted by disaster.
(The Mom in me read anxiously, wondering when those children would be able to get word to their parents that they were safe.)
In the meantime, … there was a whole lot of shenanigans happening during an emergency situation – no food, outside contact or real medical treatment.
I liked how the writer, Holly Armstrong, developed the relationship between the two adversaries, Kayla and Evan. Slowly, they began to trust one another, understand each other and form a bond. I don’t want to say too much and give away any spoilers but there were times when I grew a little frustrated and sad for the two of them. The Best Part of Hello is a romance, so you know there has to be a happy ending but when it finally happened, it came all too abruptly, making me wish for just a little bit more. For only this reason, I gave the book four stars. I felt it warranted an epilogue. After all the angst, I wanted to know what became of them five or ten years later.
I won a copy of the audiobook in a Goodreads giveaway. I absolutely adored the narrator. Sarah Sampino did a fabulous job with the various male and female voices as well as how she enacted the story.
The Best Part of Hello, written by Hollie Armstrong and narrated by Sarah Sampino.
Hollie did a great job in the development of the characters, while Sarah takes the listener through there experience on a not so pleasant school trip to Italy. This Young Adult, coming of age, hate to love romance was well worth the time to listen, Sarah did a great job telling the story, where Kayla Burns finds that the dislike she originally felt for her long time neighbor Evan Winter is now something else entirely.
This setting and story was very unique. From being stuck in a life changing storm to having your heart tug in multiple directions. I understood wanting to get revenge but I agree that it is immature especially if when she returns she experiences so much depression from adult like thoughts. I just felt like she hurt him as much as others and kept making prideful decisions. There was a rough ending but I did love the letter and of course I love the hero! I absolutely loved the narrator and she really brought me into the book and kept me hooked with so much emotion and passion that she gave to the characters.
This was a roller coaster ride of emotions. I can’t imagine going through everything these kids went through and not being more traumatized. If fact I feel like a lot of the feelings they should have been having were down played a bit especially considering the circumstances that they were in. Literally dealing with a life or death situation for DAYS with no medical or outside help, and then going on about their business once it was done was a bit hard to believe. Kayla seemed to be more effected once she was home then she was in the middle of it all happening.
I love the dynamic between Kayla and Evan, the hate to love, enemies to friends and more. I dont think I would have been as forgiving as Evan was. Especially since it was hinted at that maybe his home life was more traumatic then we knew about.
The audio performance by Sarah Sampino was really well done. I enjoyed the different accents and being able to distinguish each character clearly.
This was my first Hollie Armstrong’s book. This is a great, sweet and cute YA Romance. Kayla and Evan’s story is well written, fun, action packed, and original, filled with twists and turns. Their journey is captivating! I absolutely love the ending. Sarah Sampino did an amazing job with the narration. All characters were easy to distinguish. I enjoyed my listening.
Audible Edition
So this one was out of my wheel house as far as what I enjoy listening to and reading. I was honestly kind of shocked that it pulled me in right away since young adult isn’t really my thing. I loved getting to know Kayla and Evan – a huge misunderstanding making them enemies who eventually through catastrophe end up friends and eventually lovers (I use the term lovers loosely as there is no sex in this book nor was it eluded to, but in my mind, that’s what they became). The secondary characters, while playing a big roll in how the story unfolded, never took away from the main characters..
Kayla was a typical teenage girl with the steady boyfriend and Evan was the brooding neighbor. Never really interacting until they were forced into leaning on each other through a series of tragic events. Great story building and character development – I felt like I was right there with them. There was just enough angst to keep me coming back for more. I almost wish there would have been more at the end because I felt so invested in both of them.
Sarah Sampino did a phenomenal job of narrating both female and male parts. Her ability to change her voice to reflect several different characters was flawless. I will definitely be looking into more books with her as the narrator.