PLUS, DID I MENTION HOW IT'S SO DARN CUTE?! I WAS SMILING SO WIDELY BY THE END OF THE STORY, DAMNIT. If not a joke, thanks for your offer, but no thanks. I want to be an embedded journalist one day. Might as well get used to war zones now. And anyhow, I’m from Chicago. I think I can handle the Valley. A heartfelt, wryly perceptive account of coming to terms with irrevocable loss when life itself means inevitable change." -- Kirkus

The girl-on-girl hate and the not-like-other-girls got on my nerves. I've successfully avoided books with these tropes for a while (yay to that!), but it was annoying here. I think this is a book a lot of teens (and adults) can relate to because it's all about coping in new environments and feeling like you're alone. Jessie is a very relatable character, trying to navigate a new school and a whole new family when she feels no one is on her side. And the constant L.A. stereotypes were more annoying than funny. Maybe I don't have a right to be annoyed by this just because I've lived out here for a while, but some of them are just so blatantly untrue that it feels like the author knows nothing about the city. Everyone is definitely not skinny. Girls do not always wear skimpy dresses (in fact, L.A. is super casual compared to the U.K. and most people wear jeans and baggy tees). No, people do not always watch movies instead of reading. Girls are definitely not all blonde (high Hispanic and Asian population, actually). No, the grass is not always bright green just because it's always summer (sun + drought = not a good recipe for green grass).

So the situation is this: i'm out of contemporaries. Well, not completely, but I'm really close. The thing about that is that summer just started for me, and it's warm out and I have free time, and when the above information is true I WANT TO READ A LOT OF CONTEMPORARIES.

I've loved so many books in the past years, a fair amount of them contemporaries. And many of the contemporaries I've super enjoyed - like Faking Normal, Emily and Oliver, What We Saw - the best I could give them were4 stars. The 5 stars that I've awarded is reserved for books like Anatomy of a Misfit - books with such amazing narration that feels not only real but also so very authentic to the point that the teenage me of yesterday comes out of her hidden depths just to cry out, "This character is so me. Her feelings, her fears, her insecurities are so me. SHE IS ME!" All in all this is a super cute, fluffy contemporary that had me biting my lip and praying that Somebody Nobody was indeed who I hoped he’d be-and I was very pleased, thank you very much. SN was the unlikeliest of people to reach out and lend a virtual lending hand to help navigate the jungle of a new school when someone needed it most, and what followed was a story that had me hooked from the start and became possibly one of my favorites of the year. I finished in record time (since that’s now becoming two weeks for every book I read!!!) and devoured every word. I laughed and swooned and my heart went into overdrive. What else can you ask for? I don't like the comments Jessie make about other girls she sees at her school. Some skinny-shaming, slut-shaming, girl-hating-on-girls, etc. There are also some stereotyping. I like the way the family conflict is resolved. Jessie and her dad learn to start talking and communicating again. They were struggling after Jessie's mom died, but it was good to see them finally find a place where they can communicate and be a family again. Also, the stepmother isn't as bad as she originally appeared, and I like that she and Jessie are willing to try to be better by the end of the book

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Now, as much as I love this book with all my heart and I was willing to sacrifice my sleep for it, I have to mention the problems. This is a sweet book with a lot of poignancy, and as with many YA novels, the characters are funny and far more erudite than typical teens. Julie Buxbaum knows how to tug at your emotions without getting maudlin. (Her latest book, Hope and Other Punchlines, really blew me away.)

Overall I found this book very enjoyable. I thought the banter between Jessie and Somebody/Nobody was very funny and realistic. It was a very feel-good book, and I recommend this to anyone out there in the mood for a romantic story. But although this was a fun read I was a bit disappointed by the very predictable plot. It was very obvious from the start who SN was and although the author tries to make us believe it was someone else it was not credible at all. The author is clearly very talented, and I believe they could have made this a bit less predictable. This is why I would rate this book 4/5 stars. But I decided to up this book to 5 stars for the following reasons: that’s not the only thing that’s ... whew. caught myself from making the obvious joke just in time. you totally set me up, and I almost blew it. If you don’t have this book on your radar yet, please make sure you add it to your to read list immediately. It’s been barely two years since her mother’s death, and because her father eloped with a woman he met online, Jessie has been forced to move across the country to live with her stepmonster and her pretentious teenage son. Oh Jessie. Her pain and anger and frustration and numbness felt so real and tragic. I could see myself reacting exactly as she did, in terms of the big move, her father ignoring her feelings, her new stepmother, her new stepbrother, her new school. I love Jessie so much - she is someone to whom I can relate, someone real, someone likable. Even if you aren't entirely like her, you can relate to her on some level. Jessie is down-to-earth (especially compared to these snobs in Wood Valley High), intelligent, determined, hard-working, smart with money, humble... someone that I would be friends with, in real life.

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I’m pretty big on the contemporary genre. It’s my feel good genre, it’s my get-me-out-of-a-reading-slump genre, it’s my help-me-in-drowning-in-feels genre. But lately . . . it’s been letting me down. I will continue to power through it—all the stagnant, soul-crushing grief—but it will never be okay that my mom is not here. That she will not be at my high school graduation; that she will never give me the lecture, and I won't be able to play along and pretend to be embarrassed and say, Come on, Mom; that she will not be there when I open my college acceptance letters (or rejections); that she will never see who I grow up to be—that great mystery of who I am and who I am meant to be—finally asked and answered. I will march forth into the great unknown alone." NO TRIANGLE. Or any kind of geometry. The synopsis is purposefully misleading - and for good reason! I have been watching you at school. not in a creepy way. though I wonder if even using the word “creepy” by definition makes me creepy? anyhow, it’s just ... you intrigue me. you must have noticed already that our school is a wasteland of mostly blond, vacant-­eyed Barbies and Kens, and something about you—not just your newness, because sure, the rest of us have all been going to school together since the age of five—but something about the way you move and talk and actually don’t talk but watch all of us like we are part of some bizarre National Geographic documentary makes me think that you might be different from all the other idiots at school.