P.S. I Like You
By Kasie West
Disclaimer: There might be some spoilers in this review. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!
Synopsis: While spacing out in chemistry class, Lily scribbles some of her favorite song lyrics onto her desk. The next day, she finds that someone has continued the lyrics on the desk and added a message to her. Intrigue!
Soon, Lily and her anonymous pen pal are exchanging full-on letters—sharing secrets, recommending bands, and opening up to each other. Lily realizes she’s kind of falling for this letter writer. Only, who is he? As Lily attempts to unravel the mystery and juggle school, friends, crushes, and her crazy family, she discovers that matters of the heart can’t always be spelled out… (Goodreads Summary)
Soon, Lily and her anonymous pen pal are exchanging full-on letters—sharing secrets, recommending bands, and opening up to each other. Lily realizes she’s kind of falling for this letter writer. Only, who is he? As Lily attempts to unravel the mystery and juggle school, friends, crushes, and her crazy family, she discovers that matters of the heart can’t always be spelled out… (Goodreads Summary)
My Review: P.S. I like this book. A lot. P.S. I Like You is so adorably cute! I don't normally find myself reading actual YA contemporary Romance novels, but I do love going through Wattpad and reading cute contemporary love stories and there, and P.S. I Like You was just like that....but better written (you can't always trust those Wattpad writers to spell check and fully finish plot lines [myself included]).
From the minute I read the summary I knew I would enjoy this book. A girl writes down some of her favorite lyrics to find that someone finished them for her the next day? HOW INCREDIBLY AMAZING DOES THAT SOUND?!! I really enjoyed a majority of the plot, but found myself slightly annoyed that I was easily able to figure out who Lily's pen pal was much before the big reveal, even with all the red herrings. I also liked that West had other smaller plots going on with the main plot that were minor but somehow also very important to how the story was going to end (does that make sense??? It does to me). One example of this is the song writing competition that Lily wanted to enter. It wasn't as important as the whole pen pal plot, but they still went hand in hand with Lily's pen pal helping her to eventually write the song she is going to enter the competition with. Sidenote: I really liked how West ended the novel with Lily just figuring out what song she's going to enter instead of her actually entering and winning/losing. It really makes it feel likes there's so much more to the story, and allows the reader to imagine their own ending for the characters. Last, but not least, THE LAST LINE IN THIS BOOK MADE ME SOB HAPPY TEARS. "And then I mouthed 'I think I love you too.'" It's the perfect quirky ending line, for the perfect quirky character, in this perfectly quirky love story.
Once we got past the whole sending letters back in forth bit (the first half of the book), and Lily knows who her pen pal is, I personally thought that the book got a whole lot better. Not that the beginning was bad-it was actually really reaaaallly good-but with Lily knowing Cade was her pen pal during the second half of the book made things a lot more interesting. There were so many amazing moments in P.S. I Like You (I especially enjoyed every scene that included Bugs Rabbit), but I think that the entire Thanksgiving scene and the man bracelet scene tie as my favorites. The Thanksgiving scene was a perfect blend of humor and drama and the beginning of a romance, and the man bracelet scene is when I marked the beginning of their personal relationship (excluding letters). [Sidenote: I'm curious as to what your favorite scene in the book was, leave it down in the comments and let's chat]
One thing West did particularly well was developing the characters. By only about halfway though the book I felt like I really knew Lily through the descriptions of her clothes, habits, and the way she acted around both herself and other people. I really felt like I connected with her, and one minor thing that really helped me personally connect with her was the way she talked to herself, which is something I do quite often. Lily is probably one of the funniest protagonists I've read in a while-if not all time. Cade Jennings is one hell of a love interest if I've ever read one. He's got the sad past, good looks, and enough charisma for more than one man. One really cliche thing this book did, but that I enjoyed because I'm trash, was make the bully and the victim fall in love. Even though Cade wasn't that big of a bully, and Lily seemed to take everything a step too far, it's just really cliche.
Aside from the main characters, I found myself liking many of the minor characters as well. I thought the way West described and developed Lily's family, especially her parents and Jonah, was fantastic, Isobel is the amazing best friend everyone wishes they had, and Sasha is the bitchy kind of girl everyone hates. The only character I found myself disliking and disconnected from was Lucas. I understand why he was there in the beginning, him being the guy that the Lily knows she'll never have but she'll pine over anyway, but once Lily got the courage to ask him out and they hung out once or twice, it was like he lost his purpose. He also just disappeared way too easily from the story, and I just found myself wishing he had a bigger purpose (like possibly stirring up some drama.....ohhhohohohohhh). Aside from my minor complaint about Lucas, I still believe that Kasie West did more than an amazing job in creating loveable and relatable characters.
In conclusion, I give P.S. I Like You four and a half out of five stars for the humor, entertaining plot and amazingly written characters. I highly suggest you pick this up if you're in the mood for a cute, light read, or if you want to get out of a reading slump, because that's what this did for me.
From the minute I read the summary I knew I would enjoy this book. A girl writes down some of her favorite lyrics to find that someone finished them for her the next day? HOW INCREDIBLY AMAZING DOES THAT SOUND?!! I really enjoyed a majority of the plot, but found myself slightly annoyed that I was easily able to figure out who Lily's pen pal was much before the big reveal, even with all the red herrings. I also liked that West had other smaller plots going on with the main plot that were minor but somehow also very important to how the story was going to end (does that make sense??? It does to me). One example of this is the song writing competition that Lily wanted to enter. It wasn't as important as the whole pen pal plot, but they still went hand in hand with Lily's pen pal helping her to eventually write the song she is going to enter the competition with. Sidenote: I really liked how West ended the novel with Lily just figuring out what song she's going to enter instead of her actually entering and winning/losing. It really makes it feel likes there's so much more to the story, and allows the reader to imagine their own ending for the characters. Last, but not least, THE LAST LINE IN THIS BOOK MADE ME SOB HAPPY TEARS. "And then I mouthed 'I think I love you too.'" It's the perfect quirky ending line, for the perfect quirky character, in this perfectly quirky love story.
Once we got past the whole sending letters back in forth bit (the first half of the book), and Lily knows who her pen pal is, I personally thought that the book got a whole lot better. Not that the beginning was bad-it was actually really reaaaallly good-but with Lily knowing Cade was her pen pal during the second half of the book made things a lot more interesting. There were so many amazing moments in P.S. I Like You (I especially enjoyed every scene that included Bugs Rabbit), but I think that the entire Thanksgiving scene and the man bracelet scene tie as my favorites. The Thanksgiving scene was a perfect blend of humor and drama and the beginning of a romance, and the man bracelet scene is when I marked the beginning of their personal relationship (excluding letters). [Sidenote: I'm curious as to what your favorite scene in the book was, leave it down in the comments and let's chat]
One thing West did particularly well was developing the characters. By only about halfway though the book I felt like I really knew Lily through the descriptions of her clothes, habits, and the way she acted around both herself and other people. I really felt like I connected with her, and one minor thing that really helped me personally connect with her was the way she talked to herself, which is something I do quite often. Lily is probably one of the funniest protagonists I've read in a while-if not all time. Cade Jennings is one hell of a love interest if I've ever read one. He's got the sad past, good looks, and enough charisma for more than one man. One really cliche thing this book did, but that I enjoyed because I'm trash, was make the bully and the victim fall in love. Even though Cade wasn't that big of a bully, and Lily seemed to take everything a step too far, it's just really cliche.
Aside from the main characters, I found myself liking many of the minor characters as well. I thought the way West described and developed Lily's family, especially her parents and Jonah, was fantastic, Isobel is the amazing best friend everyone wishes they had, and Sasha is the bitchy kind of girl everyone hates. The only character I found myself disliking and disconnected from was Lucas. I understand why he was there in the beginning, him being the guy that the Lily knows she'll never have but she'll pine over anyway, but once Lily got the courage to ask him out and they hung out once or twice, it was like he lost his purpose. He also just disappeared way too easily from the story, and I just found myself wishing he had a bigger purpose (like possibly stirring up some drama.....ohhhohohohohhh). Aside from my minor complaint about Lucas, I still believe that Kasie West did more than an amazing job in creating loveable and relatable characters.
In conclusion, I give P.S. I Like You four and a half out of five stars for the humor, entertaining plot and amazingly written characters. I highly suggest you pick this up if you're in the mood for a cute, light read, or if you want to get out of a reading slump, because that's what this did for me.
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