Love, Life, and the List

5/05/2018

Love, Life, and the List by Kasie West

Blurb:

Seventeen-year-old Abby Turner's summer isn't going the way she'd planned. She has a not-so-secret but definitely unrequited crush on her best friend, Cooper. She hasn't been able to manage her mother's growing issues with anxiety. And now she's been rejected from an art show because her work "has no heart." So when she gets another opportunity to show her paintings Abby isn't going to take any chances.

Which is where the list comes in.

Abby gives herself one month to do ten things, ranging from face a fear (#3) to learn a stranger’s story (#5) to fall in love (#8). She knows that if she can complete the list she’ll become the kind of artist she’s always dreamed of being. But as the deadline approaches, Abby realizes that getting through the list isn’t as straightforward as it seems… and that maybe—just maybe—she can’t change her art if she isn’t first willing to change herself.

Review:

I knew I'd have to tell him what Mr. Wallace had really said eventually, but right after he won a race didn't seem like the right time. Maybe after dinner.

I'm pretty sure I always say the same things when I'm reviewing Kasie West books and it always boils down to: her stories aren't necessarily great, in fact they have flaws and are pretty stereotypical, but I don't care because they make me feel things and forget the world and allow me to bask in the innocent feeling of teenage-lovey-dovey-angst-drama (and also it's just so easy to read them and one can read them so quickly, it's great).

This is also true in this case, although I want to add two things: First and foremost, I think this is one of the, objectively, better books by West (compared to The Fill-In Boyfriend) because there are a lot of things that I really enjoyed: the female friendship and the family-stuff, Abby's character, plus I really liked how maturely a lot of the characters (like Elliot) dealt with difficult situations that could have easily caused more drama.

But, sadly this doesn't mean that I enjoyed it more than other books by Kasie West. If anything, I actually felt more detached from the story than I'm used to (maybe it's been too little time since I've read The Fill-In Boyfriend and I shouldn't read a West book for a while? I don't know but I hope not). Which means, that my feelings towards this book, in the end, are balanced out very evenly, as it, somehow, is always the case for the West books I read.