"The Upside of Unrequited" Book Review

My Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3.5 Stars

Such a quirky, cute cover right?

Now, I know a lot of people reading this book have read the author’s popular title “Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda” and have grown to love the author and her ability to create strong, lovable, diverse, YA characters who tackle personal issues in a socially influenced, modern world. Suffice it to say, this is the first book I have read by the author and I am glad that I have nothing to compare it you. In a way, I am truly unbiased.

My first impressions of this book lay in the premise, which seemed like it would be a fun read filled with character relationships that even I would be envious of. While the relationship between the four main girls who were childhood friends was annoying (too girly and it made me think that I am getting way too old for this genre) I quite enjoyed the relationship between the twins. There was an authenticity to them drifting apart and feeling less important to each other when a significant other enters the picture. It is something I have felt before and the realness of the situation caused the emotions expressed by the characters to feel raw and pure.

The love interests in the story fell a tad bit flat, bordering on no chemistry between characters. Some characters seemed promiscuous to me.

I did not enjoy the parents’ way of speaking to their kids. To me, there were too many profanities used in the presence of the kids. At one point I was irked when the parents got angry when the kids responded with profanity, because, how can you raise kids using this language then expect them to respond differently. Their constant use of profanity felt like they were trying to give off the vibe of “hey, we’re the cool, different, hip parents”. It just felt like there was a lack of respect for the kids. Of course someone else reading the book will disagree with me and that’s okay.

One last thing that I’m not even sure is worth mentioning but I will anyway, is that I didn’t feel a connection at all to Molly. As a bigger girl, I love reading about other pleasantly plump girls falling in love and navigating through life just being their awesome selves. The lack of connection could have been because of the fact that I did not know Molly’s actual size. Maybe it was mentioned in the first few pages and I just hadn’t realized. She mentioned Modcloth, which is a store I love and it’s known for selling plus size clothing and she did mention insecurities but then again she could have been a size 10 who thinks of herself as fat. There was an incident where a classmate told her that she was pretty for a bigger girl but maybe this person was so accustomed to size 0 girls that anyone a tad bit bigger gets called fat. I just didn’t know her size and I would have liked to.

I didn’t love this book, but I also didn’t hate it.

I’ll have a hard time recommending this book since I don’t think the younger audience (high school teens between the ages of 13-16 should read it; and the older audience (like me) may have issues with the details of the book (profanities, highly sexually active kids etc.) 

A digital copy was received via NetGalley in exchange for my unbiased review.