Review: The Upside Of Unrequited – Becky Albertalli

The Upside Of Unrequited – Becky Albertalli

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?

Review: Guys, I’m trying with romance. I promise I’m really trying.

But, if I see one more sentence about Reid’s “flickering dimple,” I swear I’m going to reach through the book and rip that freakin’ dimple off that boy’s face.

I read Becky Albertalli’s other book, Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, back when it first came out. I was pleasantly shocked by it because it didn’t sound like my type of book at all. It sounded fluffy and romancey. It was fluffy and romancey, but it was also funny and mysterious. When The Upside of Unrequited came out, I decided to give it a shot, even though it doesn’t seem like my kind of book.

The narrator, Molly, is an overweight teenager who has had 26 crushes and no boyfriends. She’s too afraid of rejection to let her crushes know how she feels. To remedy this, Molly’s twin sister and their friends try to set Molly up with Will, a cute hipster boy. Will seems like Molly’s perfect guy. He’s cute, and nice, and fun. In the midst of Molly’s Will infatuation, she starts a new job and meets Reid. Reid isn’t Molly’s type. He’s geeky and obsessed with Queen Elizabeth. As Molly gets to know Reid, she discovers that there’s more to him than Tolkien T-shirts and ugly sneakers.

First, I was so happy when I learned that the narrator is a fat girl. I’ve struggled with my weight since middle school. I’ve been fat. I’ve been average. I’ve been very close to a perfect size 0. I’ve been everything in between. I think my massive weight changes are a side effect of loving pizza. And having depression. And taking depression medicine. But mostly pizza. Molly is a relatable character for me because I was the fat girl in high school. Many of the thoughts that Molly has are the same ones I had as a teenager.

I know that it’s politically incorrect to say that you hate being fat, but . . . I hate being fat. I guess that body positivity stuff doesn’t work on me. When I’m overweight, I don’t like the way I feel or look. As a teenager, I was hugely self-conscious, so I completely understand Molly’s insecurities about her body.

“Even if he likes me, I’m not sure he’d like me naked. I hate that I’m even thinking that. I hate hating my body. Actually, I don’t even hate my body. I just worry everyone else might. Because chubby girls don’t get boyfriends, and they definitely don’t have sex. Not in movies—not really—unless it’s supposed to be a joke. And I don’t want to be a joke.” – The Upside of Unrequited

The messages in this novel are great. They’re things that teenage-me desperately needed to hear. You don’t have to change your body to be worthy of love. Everybody deserves love, no matter what they look like.

The author does a nice job of capturing the concerns of a teenage girl. I actually laughed at this part because I had this exact conversation about body hair with my friend in high school:

“It's not that bikini waxing is a foreign concept to me, but . . . I mean, I guess it kind of is. Like, it's one of those girl habits that's so far beyond me, it makes me feel like a different species. Do boys require hairless vaginas? Is this a known thing?” – The Upside of Unrequited

I love Molly, but I had a hard time staying interested in this book. This is definitely a case of “It’s not you, it’s me.” I’ve just never been interested in romance, and this story is all romance. Molly is boy-obsessed. Her moms are getting married. Her sister and cousin are in new relationships. Her friend just ended a relationship. This book is basically 300+ pages of relationship overload. I had a difficult time making myself care. I guess I prefer books where the relationships are a subplot instead of the whole story.

If you’ve ever been fat, you might be able to relate to Molly, but if you don’t like romance, you’ll probably want to stay away from this book. Try Simon Vs. instead. There’s romance in that book, but there’s also an intriguing internet mystery.

The Sunday Post #115

The Sunday Post is hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It’s a chance to recap the past week, talk about next week, and share news. It’s Monday, What Are You Reading? is hosted by Book Date. I get to tell you what I’ve read recently.

On The Blog Last Week

• On Monday I reviewed Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.
• On Tuesday I showed you what I’m going to read this fall.
• On Wednesday I reviewed Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

On The Blog This Week

• On Monday I review The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli.
• On Tuesday we talk about cult characters.
• On Wednesday I review Good Bones and Simple Murders by Margaret Atwood.
• On Thursday I do the Liebster Award Tag.
• On Saturday there might be a book haul. I haven’t done one of those posts in months. It’s probably time.

In My Reading Life

I started the week with epic eyestrain, so I read a bunch of short books with big font. I finished Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory by Caitlin Doughty. Then I read The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg and All the Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg. Then I reread one of my favorite Stephen King novellas, The Body. Right now, I’m reading The Poet’s Handbook by Judson Jerome and Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray.

 

In The Rest Of My Life

Five things that made me happy last week:

1. In my part of the world, it’s officially fall.
2. Caramel apples.
3. Since my eyes hurt too much to sleep, and reading was hard, I watched a bunch of blurry movies. I saw/listened to Hidden Figures, My Cousin Rachel, The Conjuring, and Avatar. They were all entertaining.
4. Walking my dogs at night. I like walking at night, even though it’s really dark, and I’m slightly worried about getting run over by a bicycle. Around here, the competitive cyclists train 24/7.
5. New books!

Take care of yourselves and be kind to each other! See you around the blogosphere! 

Review: Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson

A voyage for buried treasure spells trouble for cabin boy Jim Hawkins, who finds himself in the middle of a mutiny with some of the nastiest pirates to ever sail the seven seas.

Review: When I was a young, classics-obsessed bookworm, I read Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I expected it to be creepy. Instead, it was boring. Very, very disappointingly boring.

After that less-than-thrilling reading experience, I was hesitant to try more Stevenson books. Then someone offered me a copy of Treasure Island for free. You can’t pass up free classics, right? I took the book, put it on my shelf for six months, and then finally got around to reading it.

And . . . it was very, very disappointingly boring. Seriously, the most interesting part of the book is the annotations left by the kid who owned my copy before it was given to me. Judging by the kid’s margin-scribbles, she was deeply unimpressed by the story and by the essay questions her teacher assigned. Her pirate doodles are pretty adorable, though.

Anyway, on to the story. The novel is narrated by Jim Hawkins, a teenager who finds a treasure map that once belonged to a pirate who died at his parents’ inn. Jim and a few other people acquire a ship and a crew to take them to Treasure Island. They want to dig up the treasure. Unfortunately for them, their pirate crew mutinies. Chaos and death ensue. It’s up to Jim to save his friends without losing his treasure. Treasure Island was first published as a serial in a YA magazine during the 1880s.

“Fifteen men on the dead man's chest, yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest, yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” – Treasure Island

Compared to most classics, the plot of Treasure Island moves very fast. There’s a lot of action and danger. The book is short (about 150 pages), so it’s a fairly quick read.

If the book had been longer, I wouldn’t have finished it. This might be a case of “It’s not you, book, it’s me.” I’ve never had much luck with novels set on boats. Probably because I don’t care about boats and don’t have a huge desire to learn about them. There are so many ship-related words in this story that I often had trouble picturing the action scenes. I just didn’t know what the author was talking about, and constantly putting the book down to Google boat images is distracting. This is totally my fault, not the book’s. If you’re an expert in 1700s-era ships, you might love the setting.

I had a hard time following the pirates’ dialogue. I always got the gist of what they were saying, so I was never confused for very long, but holy crap, pirates ramble on and on. Get to the point already!

“The captain has said too much or he has said too little, and I'm bound to say that I require an explanation of his words.” – Treasure Island

This story was originally written for children, so the plot is simple, but it’s too simple for my liking. It’s obvious that the pirates are going to mutiny. I knew that Jim would save his friends. It’s obvious who has the treasure. I questioned why I was reading the book at all.

Treasure Island wasn’t for me, but I’m glad I read it because it’s part of western culture. This story has influenced many of the modern adventure novels I read and loved as a kid. I’m grateful for that. It’s also helpful to know the origins of “Long John Silver.” It’s more than just a restaurant where you can buy mediocre fish and chips. #TheMoreYouKnow

“It was Silver's voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world. I lay there, trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiosity, for, in those dozen words, I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended on me alone.” – Treasure Island

Top Ten Tuesday: Fall Books To Read

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This week’s topic is top ten books on my fall to-be-read list. Here’s what I’m going to be reading in the next few months.