.5/5

I want to start off saying that I'm clearly not the demographic for this as a 30 year old woman. I love YA but this was just wayy too much and made me laugh at how ridiculous some most of this was. I was hesitant to even read this since I wasn't a huge fan of another one of this author's books. I also tried to overlook my biggest pet peeve in this, pop culture references, since the entire premise of this is a love better than romcom movies. I don't know if I'll read any more of this author's books since what I've read so far leans pretty heavily on pop culture.

Spoiler

I really dislike the main character because she is the definition of a pick me and "iM nOt LiKe OtHeR gIrLs". She leans HEAVY on making romcoms her entire personality because of her mom. She also has this entire dream of Michael being so perfect and blah blah blah. Girl, you knew him from years ago and don't know anything about him now, why are you so obsessed with him??? Oh, right because he knew her mom and she clings to everything that has to do with her. You know you don’t have to make your dead mom your entire personality?! She's terrible to her step mom, all because she can't grasp the fact that her mom is dead & that she’s the total opposite of her mom. Unfortunately, that is life. She constantly is lying to her friends and overall being a shitty person. Taking directly from the book; chapter 9 (60%), “Lovesick, airhead child” perfectly sums Liz up tbh. She is trying so hard to NOT like Wes because she’s beyond obsessed with this ‘connection’ she has with Michael, even though she hardly talks with him. Oh my god, at 71% she realizes that she knows nothing about Michael right after he tells her that Wes likes someone else. No shit you know nothing about him because you’re stuck in the past aka, grade school when you’re a senior in high school?! Michael asking her to prom is hilarious, because again they know nothing about each other, have hardly spent time together, it makes zero sense. She’s shitty to Wes after she gets what she originally wanted. Wes tells her the goddamn truth that she’s not a character in a movie and she doesn’t need to bend to her mother’s wishes of what she thinks her mom would have wanted for her instead of living for herself; aka everything that makes Liz unbearable. I would also like to point out that Lainey has been nothing but nice to her the entire book and she’s been a total snob based on a previous interaction where, “she looks at Liz like she smells”, and the fact that she lives next door to Michael.


I understand having to live these crucial moments of your life without your mom, it’s fucking hard. also part of the dead moms club But damn, go to therapy instead of living in the past and messing up every relationship in your life. Wes is clearly too good for her and I give them 3 months tops together in college.

The movie quotes at the beginning of each chapter were so annoying. Overall, this author’s writing is garbage. Is it really necessary to add what song they’re listening to in the car EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. The amount of times I rolled my eyes at this book was appalling. As someone who reads a lot of books, this might be the worst book I’ve read this year. Thank God for libraries because spending money on reading this dumpster fire would be a crime.