“I’m wrecked with love for this funny, joyful, bighearted book.” – Becky Albertalli, author of Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
Grade: 5
My favorite read of the year, so far. It starts just a tad slow, but once the story picked up, I didn’t want to put it down!
Elouise/Elle/Lou is a slightly klutzy teenager hoping for the best summer of her life before her last year of high school. Her best friend, Seeley, is along for the ride as always… Until, Elouise decides to fake a relationship with Seeley to catch the eye of Nick, their friend/co-worker/schoolmate.
I think my favorite thing about this book is that there is no bad guy. Elouise has not been shunned or bullied. She has friends, a decent life, a job. She just wants more. On the road to more, she causes herself some pain, but no one jumps on the bandwagon and actively hurts her. It was so refreshing.
The story veered from the typical gut-wrenching pity-inducing moment, instead gave us a character that had to grow up and understand how to fix her own mistakes.
I thought character development was on point. The characters that needed to be fleshed out were and the background characters were left appropriately as background characters.
Overall, this book is why I like YA. Our heroine is flawed in a way that would make an adult character un-likeable, but is acceptable in a 16 yr old. These flaws give her space to grow as a person. The only downfall of the book was that the beginning of the book was a little slow as a lot of information was dumped right upfront.
Bottom line: if you like contemporary YA, this book is for you!
Lori Carroll
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