When I glimpsed the title of this YA novel at my (father’s) local library, I snatched it up right away. A lover – and later critic – of the manic pixie dream girl trope and fan of everything from Garden State to New Girl to 500 Days of Summer to Breakfast at Tiffany’s, seeing a YA novel that subverted this portrayal of the female characters with which I have such a complicated relationship seemed like my dream vacation read.
And for some reason, it just… wasn’t.
I’m pretty famous in my close circle for finishing books even when I don’t like them, and those around me heard me complaining about this one and kept telling me to put it down, to pick up something else. But this was about more than my obsessive need to finish every book I started. No, this was more.
Why didn’t I like it?
Was it its predictability, the way in which the endgame was set up so clearly from page 1 it seemed as though I had to be wrong in guessing that that was where the book was going? (Spoiler alert: it went there.) Was it the fact that the main character was so un-self-aware as to be, not just unlikeable, but impossible to empathize with? Was it the fact that, in subverting one trope, it somehow managed to play into so many others (girls hating girls, gay self-loathing)?
The reality is that it’s probably a combination of all of these things… and yet I’m glad I soldiered on. Because the moment of true subversion of the manic pixie dream girl trope is so unpredictable it positively tickled me, and that instant made the entire reading experience worth it.