Author: Mary H. K. Choi
Date Read: May 6th 2018
Published: March 27th 2018 @ Simon & Schuster
Genre: YA Contemporary
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
"It's piles and piles of emotional homework forever if you ever want to qualify as a grown-up."
I did it. I gave in to the hype and the cover aesthetic. And strangely, while I sped through the story itself, this has been a really difficult book to discuss and to review. Because I liked it, but also I didn't, and the reasons why are kind of convoluted. Let's give it a go, shall we?
I'm hesitant to give this book less than three stars, because I do think that as a form of wish-fulfillment, it really does work. Which, judging by the acknowledgements that begin with thanking Choi's "IRL Sam," is precisely the point. And the thing is, there's nothing wrong with that per se. It's a story about a cute boy finding a girl charming despite her obvious social ineptitude, and that's lovely in its own way. It is exactly the coffee shop AU that you wrote fan fiction about in high school, with all the fluff that accompanies it. It's just not... enough, exactly.
I think the most interesting element for this novel was definitely the characterization of Sam. We gripe all the time in critical reviews of media about the manic pixie dream girl whose flaws only serve to make her quirky and endearing to her male love interest, and like... that's Sam. It's such a compelling subversion to me that Sam is presented as a manic pixie dream boy to Penny's flawed protagonist. Because, let's be real here, Sam's only definable character flaws are that he's too skinny, that he's poor, and that he's like twenty and is still working at a coffee shop. Don't get me wrong, I can definitely understand how debilitating it can feel to be living in a university town and not going to university, and how it can feel like you've been left behind, but is it really a character flaw to not know what you're doing with your life at twenty years old? Yes, he has a troubled past, but it's situated in a way that makes him stronger for overcoming it, and the narrative never looks down on him for it.
By contrast, Penny's character flaws are much more fleshed-out and much more off-putting: she's judgemental, she consistently slut-shames other girls including her mother, and frankly, she's mean. (Which is to say nothing about the pages worth of description of her being sweaty??) The reason in particular that I say this novel is one of wish-fulfillment is that while Penny does acknowledge and apologize for her shitty behaviour, she doesn't seem to have to change very much, and everyone around her seems to just... get it. "She's an awful friend and an ungrateful brat, but that's just Penny and we love her anyway!" Which is an endearing concept as a self-insert type of character, because it doesn't require us to do any work. Penny doesn't need to change her behaviour because she's automatically forgiven for it, under the guise of having found people who understand her.
Beyond Sam and Penny as characters, however, is not much else. The writing style is stiff and oftentimes tries way too hard to be ~totally adorkable~ and despite early suggestions that the setting was going to play a major role in the story, at least as far as imagery, it amounted to nothing in particular.
There were some things that I did like though, like Sam's relationship with his mother. I appreciate in stories like this one when the author is willing to let things end without a neat little bow around it-- Sam's relationship with his mother is deeply flawed, and she is deeply flawed, and a tin of cookies is never going to fix that. It felt like the most raw and authentic scene in the entire book.
In summary, this novel did what it set out to do. It offers a cute, sometimes charming account of awkward affection, which works as a form of wish-fulfillment. Though its moral grounds are shaky at best, from weird mother-slut-shaming to the premise of not having to work on yourself as long as you find your tribe, I don't necessarily think a novel has to agree with you morally to be good. Still, it wasn't sufficiently engaging outside of the two leads to make me fall in love with the story.
I'm hesitant to give this book less than three stars, because I do think that as a form of wish-fulfillment, it really does work. Which, judging by the acknowledgements that begin with thanking Choi's "IRL Sam," is precisely the point. And the thing is, there's nothing wrong with that per se. It's a story about a cute boy finding a girl charming despite her obvious social ineptitude, and that's lovely in its own way. It is exactly the coffee shop AU that you wrote fan fiction about in high school, with all the fluff that accompanies it. It's just not... enough, exactly.
I think the most interesting element for this novel was definitely the characterization of Sam. We gripe all the time in critical reviews of media about the manic pixie dream girl whose flaws only serve to make her quirky and endearing to her male love interest, and like... that's Sam. It's such a compelling subversion to me that Sam is presented as a manic pixie dream boy to Penny's flawed protagonist. Because, let's be real here, Sam's only definable character flaws are that he's too skinny, that he's poor, and that he's like twenty and is still working at a coffee shop. Don't get me wrong, I can definitely understand how debilitating it can feel to be living in a university town and not going to university, and how it can feel like you've been left behind, but is it really a character flaw to not know what you're doing with your life at twenty years old? Yes, he has a troubled past, but it's situated in a way that makes him stronger for overcoming it, and the narrative never looks down on him for it.
By contrast, Penny's character flaws are much more fleshed-out and much more off-putting: she's judgemental, she consistently slut-shames other girls including her mother, and frankly, she's mean. (Which is to say nothing about the pages worth of description of her being sweaty??) The reason in particular that I say this novel is one of wish-fulfillment is that while Penny does acknowledge and apologize for her shitty behaviour, she doesn't seem to have to change very much, and everyone around her seems to just... get it. "She's an awful friend and an ungrateful brat, but that's just Penny and we love her anyway!" Which is an endearing concept as a self-insert type of character, because it doesn't require us to do any work. Penny doesn't need to change her behaviour because she's automatically forgiven for it, under the guise of having found people who understand her.
Beyond Sam and Penny as characters, however, is not much else. The writing style is stiff and oftentimes tries way too hard to be ~totally adorkable~ and despite early suggestions that the setting was going to play a major role in the story, at least as far as imagery, it amounted to nothing in particular.
There were some things that I did like though, like Sam's relationship with his mother. I appreciate in stories like this one when the author is willing to let things end without a neat little bow around it-- Sam's relationship with his mother is deeply flawed, and she is deeply flawed, and a tin of cookies is never going to fix that. It felt like the most raw and authentic scene in the entire book.
In summary, this novel did what it set out to do. It offers a cute, sometimes charming account of awkward affection, which works as a form of wish-fulfillment. Though its moral grounds are shaky at best, from weird mother-slut-shaming to the premise of not having to work on yourself as long as you find your tribe, I don't necessarily think a novel has to agree with you morally to be good. Still, it wasn't sufficiently engaging outside of the two leads to make me fall in love with the story.
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