The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

Publication:April 11th 2017 by Balzer + Bray

Goodreads Description:
Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.

Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back. 

There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

My thoughts:

I absolutely loved Becky Albertalli's book, Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, so when I saw she had a new book coming out I was over the book and then it started getting so much positive reviews I knew I had to read it ASAP. Unfortunatly The Upside of Unrequited didn't live up to all the hype for me. I think I went into it with too high expectations that left me disappointed. I was expecting to be funny and cute and have charming characters I couldnt help but fall in love with like Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda and that is not what I gof. The Upside of Unrequited fell flat for me; I wouldn't say it is a bad book, it was okay and I liked it and it was a super quick and easy read but I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. 

I did not like Molly for starters. I went into the book assuming I would relate to her a lot and I did a tiny bit but not enough to really connect with her. I felt awkward reading some of her thoughts. She was just too obsessed with certain things and it annoyed me how childish she was. She felt very underdeveloped which was jarring to me because Simon was so developed in SVsHSA. I felt like the only thing Molly cared about was her crushes; I wanted to get to know her more.

Onto the plot...there wasn't really one and there usually isn't anything major in contemporaries but I can usually get behind the relationship or character to be interested in the story but I wasn't engaged while reading The Upside of Unrequited. I found it a bit boring and I was just waiting for something interesting to happen. It's literally a story about a girl who hasn't been kissed finding a guy and kissing him and that isn't interesting to me; I wanted more of a character driven arc where the characters grow and are challenged. 

I feel like I read a different book in regards to the romance. I felt no romantic chemistry between Molly and her love interest and I didn't find their story to be swoon worthy and cutesy like so many other readers did. I felt like their relationship was written as a friendship.

I will say that The Upside of Unrequited does have lots of diversity in terms of race, sexuality, gender identity, religion and body size which was nice to see.

The Upside of Unrequited is definitely a quick easy read but it is nothing special (to me anyway). Overall I think my expectations were too high; I loved Simon so I am going to give Becky Albertalli's books another go; I just think this one wasn't for me. 

My rating: 3 stars

Thanks for reading,

A :)

*Check out my review of Becky Albertalli's other book, Simon Vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda here!