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 moustache 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 Brownouts 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-lullingly-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.
I usually always like Young Adult contemporary romances, they're the kind of books that are just super enjoyable to read!
The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You was no exception! While it contained many elements of YA contemporaries that I love, high school, a love-hate relationship, drama and scandal,
The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You had so much additional geeky nerd and I loved it!! The Messina Academy for the Gifted is no ordinary high school, every pupil is a super genius which made for a very interesting read!
We follow a group of really nerdy characters, they're into comics, and fandoms, and all things sic-fi. I loved reading the references to the nerdy world, I'm a bit of a nerd myself, so I guess you could say that I bonded with the characters through the nerdiness. I liked pretty much all of the characters in the book, their relationships and group dynamic were really enjoyable to read. I didn't get the feeling that any of the relationships were annoyingly cheesy or so ridiculous that they'd only be possible in fiction. The friendships all seemed realistic, yet they had a little extra something that made them stand out from the real world.
The main romantic relationship in
The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You was between Trixie and Ben, enemies since an infamous monkey bar incident, so of course we have a love-hate relationship going on! I have to admit that I really enjoy a love-hate relationship, there's always so much tension and it's so enjoyable to read. Lily Anderson has Trixie and Ben throwing insults at each other left, right and centre, they aren't the usual high school jabs that many have probably experienced, these are intelligent, intellectually referenced slanders, and boy were they entertaining!
The development from hate to not-hate wasn't a particularly natural progression between Trixie and Ben, I don't want to say too much and give away any spoilers, but the change in their respective outlooks on each other required some outside information. This was honestly one of the only areas of the novel that I had issue with, honestly I saw through and predicted what was going on, and don't particularly understand how so-called geniuses didn't see it too? So yes that edge of predictability was a slight annoyance to an otherwise very enjoyable book.
I mentioned earlier that the characters are nerds, Trixie reads comics and makes so many nerdy references throughout the novel. I have to say I enjoyed all references to all things
Marvel,
DC,
Doctor Who and
Sherlock, I might not be a huge comic girl myself, but I do love superheroes! One line that caught my attention in particular, and made me love Trixie a little more was this;
"And the dead sexiness of Tom Hiddleston"
I freaking love Tom Hiddleston's portrayal of Loki, in my opinion he is significantly better than Thor! I'm also happy to admit that in general I really do like Tom Hiddleston and could not agree with the quote more!
I really enjoyed
The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You, I started reading it on my Kindle app to kill time, and then spent my Sunday lounging in the sun in the garden finishing off the book! I haven't been reading an awful lot recently but I'm really glad I finished and enjoyed
The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You!
About the Author
Lily Anderson is an elementary school librarian and Melvil Dewey fangirl with an ever-growing collection of musical theatre tattoos and Harry Potter ephemera. She lives in North California. The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You is her debut novel.
