The unrequited love of the girl next door is the centerpiece of this fiercely funny, yet heart-breaking debut novel.
Fifteen-year-old Matt Wainwright is in turmoil. He can’t tell his lifelong best friend, Tabby, how he really feels about her; his promising basketball skills are being overshadowed by his attitude on the court, and the only place he feels normal is in English class, where he can express his inner thoughts in quirky poems and essays. Matt is desperately hoping that Tabby will reciprocate his feelings; but then Tabby starts dating Liam Branson, senior basketball star and all-around great guy. Losing Tabby to Branson is bad enough; but, as Matt soon discovers, he’s close to losing everything that matters most to him.
Before I jump into my review I want to thank bloggingforbooks.com (RIP) for having sent me this book in exchange for this honest review of the book. BEFORE YOU CONTINUE READING PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Matty loves Tabby and Tabby loves Matty, just not in the way he wants her to love him. The two of them have been best friends before they even knew what those words were. But when Liam Branson starts hanging out with Tabby, she starts loving him the way Matty loves her.
We get to meet Tabby and Matty during their freshman year of high school, when everything changes. There are new beginning and endings that we don’t see coming.
I really enjoyed reading this book. I loved reading a love story from a teenage boys perspective, written about by a male author. I feel like most, if not all, of the contemporary romance novels I read are written by women. So this was a nice change of narrative.
I can relate to Matty’s unrequited love with someone you spend A LOT of time with. And I know that movie playing inside my head the same way Matty does, and if that movie were real life I would have had TONS of boyfriends but no, that’s not the way the world works.
Matty’s friend, Tripp, is that good friend we all have who stands by our side no matter how often we retreat into ourselves. He is always there for Matty no matter what happens.
THIS PART IS VERY SPOILERY DO NOT READ IF YOU DONT WANT TO READ SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
When Tabby dies, Matty is introduced to grief and the grieving process. The grieving process is something I learnt to truly navigate when I was eighteen years old. My brother lost his best friend when he was around the same age as Matty, so getting to see this from Matty’s eyes really put a lot of things in perspective for me.
Matty learns that everyone has the right to grieve, he comes to that conclusion after getting knocked out by Branson. The relationship between Liam and Matty is one that could have been really strong if Matty wasn’t so busy hating him the whole time. Which is completely understandable because of his feelings towards Tabby.
This book tries to make as much sense as possible for the feelings that a high schooler has and all the things they go through.
I think this book was a lot of fun to read and touches upon some really important topics.
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