A Pretty Implausible Premise

Swifties will love all of the song references in A Pretty Implausible Premise, the love story of Hattie and Presley loosely tied to Taylor Swift and deeply tied to a fictional novel called “The Shark Club”. It is hard to describe the characters of Hattie and Presley in a simple way—they both have a lot going on in their lives as they are introduced in the plot. Hattie, who is grappling with grief after a young boy dies while she is on duty as a lifeguard, is also navigating the continued absence of her mother who left her and her dad for Switzerland and deleted all evidence of her existence on the way out. In addition to Hattie’s having an undecided future after quitting competitive swimming, her town is on the brink of evacuation due to wildfires. Because she has also developed synesthesia, different words have different tastes. She is obsessed with a book called “The Shark Club”, and she has read it so many times she can open any page and jump back into the plot.

Presley has recently moved to Hattie’s town after a horrific car accident that resulted in the death of his brother, his father’s going to prison, and injuries forcing him to give up skating. His mom recently got remarried to a woman named Ellie, and they all live together in a temporary small house in the near-burning city. Hattie and Presley are both haunted by the deaths they witnessed—literally. They are able to see the ghosts of the people they desperately want to still be living. Hattie and Presley meet and Sparks Fly (I told you there were Taylor Swift references throughout!), and thus begins the complicated love story of two teenagers.

A Pretty Implausible Premise is a dual perspective novel, with most chapters being relatively short and engaging. There are breaks in the prose where text messages are sent, Hattie is being interviewed by a psychology student about her synesthesia, or portions of “The Shark Club” are included that add intrigue for the reader and typically help build the characterization of Hattie. There are a handful of side characters—mostly friends of either Hattie or Presley—that help move the plot forward, but very few stand out as feeling fully developed. One of Hattie’s friends includes text talk and emoji descriptions in her vernacular, something which teenage readers will probably find a little bit cringey, but the real focus of the novel is on the “will they, won’t they” romance between Hattie and Presley. Because Presley is familiar with “The Shark Club” (in fact, his mom wrote the novel) and knows that Hattie is obsessed with it, he recreates moments of the book to try to win Hattie over, something which leads to the blurring of lines between reality and fiction for Hattie and which ultimately becomes a sore point in the dynamic between Hattie and Presley. Young adult readers will be eager to know how things turn out between the two and will enjoy the sweet moments shared between the protagonists. However, I do think the characters are bringing too many different conflicts and complexities to the plot that complicate the big storylines of romance and navigating grief. It felt like a large part of my reading time was spent flipping back in the pages to remind myself of who was experiencing what, and why, and that slowed down the overall pace of the story.

A Pretty Implausible Premise is a sweet love story with a lot going on.