2.5 out of 5 Stars
First: I hate Maggie. Maggie is the worst. She sucks massive donkey balls.
Second: Sam is great. I like Sam a lot. Sam deserved way better than Maggie.
Third: The plot sucked.
**WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD**
Maggie is what my friends call a "Madison". What is a Madison, you ask? Talking about past lives, going on a "self discovery road trip", saying shit like "I'm trying to access this part of my brain that's been lost to technology ", giving off manic pixie dream girl vibes left and right, showing up to potentially dangerous shit like ice-fishing with zero equipment or prep-work and thinking she'll be able to do it just fine, being just a crazy bitch in general. All of these things and more make Maggie a Madison. And she was annoying as shit. When a main character in a book is going "oh I'm so pathetic" I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO AGREE WITH HER. I'm supposed to go "Oh honey it isn't that bad, it will be ok. You've just hit a rough spot." But with Maggie...geesus. She's so damn pathetic for trying to get her ex, whom she'd dated for a handful of months, back after he broke up with her on Christmas morning. Maggie was fucking nuts. She was a total loon, and she was dumb as shit.
The only real complaint I have about Sam was his whole thing about Maggie "not being like other girls" which is just...so many levels or dumb. What kind of women was Sam hanging out with? Ones that spend $500 on designer shoes, that bitch about the cold and won't touch a fish? Was the implication that his sisters were like that because I didn't get the impression. Sam needed to find better women to hang out with I guess. Because those kind of women exist. And they aren't even a tiny minority. Maggie isn't special. She was dumb as shit, though. And then she was suddenly "just like other girls" again when he found out her ex was a football player? And then, Sam didn't want to date seriously because....he didn't want another woman depending on him??? For all Sam's life was full of strong women that he cared for deeply, Sam had some...strange opinions about women. Ones I didn't appreciate.
Because the plot was started in the first place because of Maggie's stupidity, it sucked. Maggie's decision to try to get her asshole ex back was dumb. Her whole plot to prove she was "adventurous" was dumb. Sam said it early on, you shouldn't have to change yourself for someone to like you. And her ex was a piece of work. He broke up with her on Christmas, choked her on his dick until she vomited and the experience was so bad she was afraid to go down on a guy again, the first thing he does when he calls her to get her back is try phone sex. I mean, I get we aren't supposed to like him. But when he is this bad, I don't get why she'd want to get him back at all.
And then - AND THEN - she can't tell anyone what was happening because then they would think badly about her ex and when she got him back they would hate them. It's like she knows he sucks, but can't make the next logical leap to "why would I want back a guy who sucks so much?". And then she was having her brother's girlfriend and best friend lie to him to help her. And then she turned on her brother's girlfriend when she tried to make Maggie see how dumb she was being. The last scene with everyone at the bar she went full manic. She was freaking out holy shit. Lying about liking wine and ordering a beer, acting like a crazy person. Just...what the fuck.
So yeah, the plot sucked, and Maggie sucked. The only reason this isn't rated lower is Sam.