The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli || 3/5
Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.
Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back.
There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?
- The writing style was lovely.
- I appreciate the pacing.
- I like that it takes place in the Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda universe and that we get to see some of our favorite characters, but it seemed somewhat awkward to force them to show up. But it made me happy, so *shrugs*.
- Aside from Molly, our main character, the other characters weren’t developed at all.
- I wasn’t attached to Molly or any of the other characters. I didn’t find Molly relatable.
- Molly was constantly thinking about dating and boys and etc. etc. It got repetitive.
- There’s not much of a plot.
- Overall, it’s a decent book, though somewhat boring. I’d recommend it if you enjoyed Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda.
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Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda || A Book Review
I think I’m going to read Simon, but it seems that it’s Albertalli’s only book that has a plot.
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That’s true.
I liked What If It’s Us, but it’s pretty much purely fluff. It did touch on heavier topics, but I think I would’ve liked the book better without that because it didn’t explore it fully.
I really liked Simon. It had lovely characters and an overarching plot. I hope you enjoy it.
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That’s an interesting thought, I do think that sometimes issues like that, when the characters are young, simply serve as a backdrop, but I’m sure if it was a new adult book it would have been explored with greater attention.
Simon sounds universally good, I’m going to give it a go, for sure.
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ah, a pity. most reviews i read raved about this book.
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I really wanted to love this book, but it’s unfortunate that it simply didn’t work for me. The book is generally adored.
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