The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You - Lily Anderson

The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You by Lily Anderson
Genre: YA Realistic Fiction

Blurb (on back of book): Trixie Watson has two very important goals for senior year: to finally save enough to buy the set of Doctor Who figurines at the local comic books store, and to place third in her class and knock Ben West--and his horrendous new mustache that he spent all summer growing--down to number four.
Trixie will do anything to get her name ranked over Ben's, including give up sleep and comic books--well, maybe not comic books--but definitely sleep. After all, the war of Watson v. West is as vicious as the Doctor v. Daleks and Browncoats v. Alliance combined, and it goes all the way back to the infamous monkey bars incident in the first grade. Over a decade later, it's time to declare a champion once and for all.
The war is Trixie's for the winning, until her best friend starts dating Ben's best friend and the two are unceremoniously dumped together and told to play nice. Finding common ground is odious and tooth-pullingly-painful, but Trixie and Ben's cautious truce slowly transforms into a fandom-based tentative friendship. When Trixie's best friend gets expelled for cheating and Trixie cries foul play, however, they have to choose who to believe and which side they're on--and they might not pick the same side.

MY OPINION: ******

WOW.

Another six-star book!

These are rare, I have to say. Yes, I do have a few that I just can't help but putting, but this book was so monumentally shaking that I can't help but put a six-stars.

It's hard to explain my love for this book. As Anton Ego would say from Ratatouille, "It shook me to the core." I don't know why I think about that but it's what comes to mind.

It's actually very strange that I like this book. It's so unlike everything I read and the plotline wasn't the most developed or complicated or anything. However, I just loved everything about it, the characters, the writing, the action, the setting, EVERYTHING...

Except for TWO LITTLE things.

1. BEN WEST'S MUSTACHE
I don't appreciate a dude with a mustache and maybe that's just me but I found it so HARD to get attached to Ben when all I could think about was a tall, otherwise good-looking guy, with a HANDLEBAR MUSTACHE.

Not sure if this counts as a spoiler, but when he finally shaved it, I was so relieved and I definitely liked him infinitesimally better than before. 

2. The ending and that PLOT TWIST.
NOT ABOUT THE WHOLE MIKE SHEPARD THING. That was almost predictable. Almost. I knew it either had to be him or Meg. But I really didn't want it to be Meg because I absolutely loved her character. And something about the way Mike was described seemed like a clue to me. Though his motives were impressively insane.

The thing that I absolutely hated was the fact that BEN WEST WASN'T ALWAYS IN LOVE WITH HER SINCE FIRST GRADE.

Before that whole scene in the park about Ben West's impossible brink-of-suicide crush, this book was good but not amazing. BUT THEN I READ THAT SCENE AND I ALMOST DIED AND IT WAS TOTALLY SIX-STARS.

And then I find out it was a SET UP FOR MEG'S STUPID GREAT THOUGHT EXPERIMENT THING??

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

No idea how to put GIFs but if I did, this is where one would go :) (CAN SOMEONE HELP ME WITH THAT?)

The whole thing about how Ben didn't mean to push her off the monkey bars and he was trying to hold her hand just pierced my heart and I instantaneously fell in love, mustache and all.

WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE A JOKE? THAT JUST MADE THE BOOK THAT MUCH WORSE!

But I still undoubtedly loved it.

Okay, let's talk about the relationships first because that was interesting :)

Cornell and Harper. I shipped it to the absolute end, despite some... ahem, SETBACKS, that I managed to look over. Cornell DID slightly get on my nerves because, please. MAN UP and ASK HER OUT. She likes you, you like her, BOOM.

*Let's take a moment to pause and look at silly, hypocritical me.*

Okay.

Harper's obvious blushing and all that seriously got on my nerves. MAN UP, GIRL, AND GO GET THAT BOY!

I don't even know what to say about myself right now.

But their whole little couple thing was gag-worthy, cheesy, and adorable!

Meg and her... revolving door of guys? I honestly didn't know who she was with in this book because she always seemed to be switching guys. Did she end up with Peter???

I did think that Meg was a sweet character, always ready to help. I loved her friendship with Trixie (cute name, btw) and it was definitely something to be envied.

I have good friends but they're never as close as they are as in the books. Then again, neither is anything else.

Sigh. Why do I even dream?

Can we just take a moment to say how much I absolutely LOVED Peter??? At some points, I liked him more than Ben (which is a feat!). He was sweet and strong and kind and determined and brave and I LOVED HIM SO MUCH. Ben annoyed me in the beginning with that mustache (I LOVE TRIXIE'S OPINION ON IT) and I found myself shipping Trix with Peter. And when he asked her out at the carnival, I was on the brink of tears because I so wanted it but I also loved Ben!

Peter Donnelly.
Ben West.

AHHHH

What do I do with my life??

Can you guys comment and tell me if you find this remotely interesting? Because now I'm just rambling about book boys.

Okay, let's move on to the ULTIMATE.

BEN AND TRIXIE. SO ADORABLE. So meant-to-be, so cliche, so sappy, so AMAZING. I loved them together. Their opposing clashes and their common interests just made them PERFECT for each other. I loved how Ben seemed to actually care about Trixie and what she thought about him. I mean, seriously. HE SHAVES HIS MUSTACHE. And maybe it wasn't for her but her subliminal and not messages were SO there.

The whole haunted house scene was ADORABLE in my opinion. I loved that so much. Really obvious that Ben was the clown and when she complained about him, I was about to die and curse this girl to... well, down below.

I also loved the nerd duel. That was cute. The whole gifted school thing was interesting and I liked the take on high school life.

I loved the writing style of this book. I also LOVED the little inserts of texts and emails in between chapters.

I would recommend this book to people who like reading "nerdy," "geeky," romantic books!

Main Character: Trixie
Sidekick(s): Ben, Harper, Meg, Peter, Cornell, etc
Villain(s): Can't really say...
Realistic Fiction Elements: This book was mostly REAL to life.