Review Of The Upside Of Unrequited By 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?

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I would like to start off saying: I gave it three stars because I'm a generous person, not because that's how I felt about it. I guess it's more of a 2.5-ish.

I went into this book knowing nothing about it. I recently finishedWhat If It's Us by Becky Abertalli and Adam Silvera, and absolutely loved it. So I wanted to read other books by the authors, which is why I picked this book off the shelf at the library, not because I liked the description. I had no idea what it was about when choosing it. I think I might've read the description after I started it though.

In the beginning, I actually liked Molly. But then I read more, and lost all respect for her, for multiple reasons.

1) She has had twenty-six crushes, and none of them have gone anywhere. She constantly whines about how she's never been in a relationship before. Which, I understand, it must be tough to be around people who have been in relationships before, but not you yourself. But then you learn that she has never admitted her feelings to the guys she's crushed on. How does she expect to start dating a guy that doesn't know how she feels about him? Does she expect him to express his feelings for her when she wouldn't do the same thing for him? I just don't understand how she thinks a relationship works.

2) Anytime she sees a guy, her brain goes straight to crush mode. That's not realistic at all. People are allowed to have friends that are the gender(s) they're interested in. I don't think about crushes everytime I meet or see a guy. And I have plenty of friends that are boys. And I don't need (or want) those relationships to be any deeper than friends. Literally every single time she meets a guy in the course of the book (which isn't too often, mind you), she evaluates his level of, what, crushability?

3) She is a self-proclaimed "fat girl". She whines about how nothing romantically works out for "fat girls". She is worried about what people will think of her naked. And all together really doesn't like her body. She shouldn't give a damn. She shouldn't be worried about what people think of her physical appearance. But then, I guess it makes sense because she is always thinking about the appearance of others. When she meets a guy (and is trying to figure out his crushability), she evaluates his cuteness. Which to me seems totally backwards. yes, being cute is totally a bonus, but, and I don't know about you, but personality is everything for me. She should be trying to see if she likes his personality. Heck, after reading this entire book, I don't even know what type of personalities she's into. Well, actually, that brings me to the next point:

I feel like the characters didn't have enough personality. Characters is a huge thing for me when I'm reading a book. I need characters I like to be invested in what happens to them. The only character with a lot of personality was Molly, but we still don't know that much about her, and from reading the above, you already know how I feel about her. I think the only way to asses each character's personality, or lack thereof, is to go through all of them, so that's what I'm gonna do.

Cassie: She was such a jerk to Molly. She told embarrassing stories about her, she tried to set her up with her girlfriend's friend for selfish reasons, she ditched Molly for Mina, and, when confronted about it, denied it. She just seems like a terrible sister, or person in general. But that's all we know about her. Not what she does in her spare time, her fashion style, whether or not she wears makeup.

Will: He has red hair. That's all I know about him.

Max: He's Mina's friend.

Olivia: She's calm and has a jerk boyfriend.

Abby: Moved to Georgia. Has a boyfriend named Nick. Is outgoing (I only know this because it was stated, not because anything from her personality showed that she was).

Reid: Likes Game of Thrones and Mini Eggs and edible cookie dough. Has weird obsession with Queen Elizabeth. It claims he's a nerd, but he doesn't seem like one. I'm a huge book and musical theater nerd. I can't go one conversation without making a reference to something, even if I know that the person I'm talking to won't get it. He never mentions the things he's so-called "obsessed with".

Then there are some other random issues that I've got with the book:

-Name dropping. Molly says that one of her crushes is Lin-Manuel Miranda. I, too, really like the guy, but it doesn't say anything about why she likes him. I mean, I could infer she likes one of his shows, most likely Hamilton because (sadly) most people don't know In The Heights. But I have to do just that infer. Nowhere does it mention her liking Hamilton (or In The Heights). Not one reference. Or off hand comment about it. Or an instance of her listening to it.

-The love triangle. I absolutely, positively loathe love triangles. Sometimes it's needed, pr at least has a point, but in this case it truly was pointless. It felt really forced. Molly didn't have feelings for Will. The end, right? No. They had to make it a love triangle. It felt so forced and unnatural. As far as dumb ones go, this one is pretty dumb.

-There was no plot. None, whatsoever. I mean, I don't really expect an enthralling plot from a romance, but they usually have something. You can take this with a grain of salt, because I don't read romances that often. But of the ones I've read, they all have some sort of plot. This book is really mostly Molly's internal whining.

With that said, I'm sure this book has appeal for some people. It is very diverse, which is great. It is a pretty light read. And if you're into some of the stuff I don't like, like love triangles, you just might really enjoy this book.