The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli – Spoiler Free Review

Title: The Upside of Unrequited
Author: Becky Albertalli
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publication Date: April 11th, 2017
Pages: 336 (Paperback)
Publishers: PUFFIN
Rating:

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, 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, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

So this is my first book by Becky Albertalli and now I realise what all the hype was about! The writing was amazing! It flowed well and even though this book isn’t action packed it always felt fast paced and I read this book so quickly! I think it was a total of about 3 hours last night before I was falling asleep and about 4 hours today I read the book in. The book hooked you and dragged you in! It was very hard to put it down!

I also really enjoyed that the story continued after the main romance part with the main character was over. The ending was probably my favourite part of this book!

I really enjoyed the plot of this book and also that the main plot wasn’t the only thing going on. There were other kind of plots going on in the background too which were really enjoyable as well.

I’m not a romance reader but this book was actually adorable. Like I said above I think the last bit was my favourite part and I was literally silently had tears running down my face in the last couple chapters (Happy tears).

I absolutely loved the hugely diverse cast of characters that were in this book.
First off we had a main female character, Molly, that suffered from anxiety and was . A lesbian twin sister, Cassie, (I think she was lesbian, it wasn’t strictly stated). We had a bisexual, Nadine and a lesbian, Patty (I think, again wasn’t strictly said) mothers of the twins and they also have a little brother. And did I mention that the kids were born through Artificial Insemination, one mother having the twins and the other having their little brother? Then there was also Cassie’s girlfriend who is pansexual. There was a gay couple that popped up at the end too. I think that is all, but there might have been more that I can’t recall while writing this.

I really enjoyed Molly as a character and I found her fairly relatable. I don’t suffer from anxiety myself but some of the thoughts she had throughout the book were definitely things that had gone through my head when I was younger. It was a little frustrating at times being her head because you just felt like shaking her and telling her to just do it! But I have never suffered from anxiety and I have also been a very loud and out there person and have never fully given a crap what people thought of me. But I fully understood that how I was thinking was not how anxiety works and I think reading this book made me a bit more aware of what it would be like to have anxiety.

Cassie was a little petty and annoying at times but fairly enjoyable. I liked the idea of her trying to help Molly get her first boyfriend but it did annoy me that she never actually asked if the person she wanted Molly to be with was actually the person Molly wanted to be with and in that case she was a little selfish.

Okay, Will did kinda annoy me. This next bit is going to be a little spoilery, so skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want spoilers. So he did lead Molly on. The casual talking and flirting were fine but what annoyed me was when he deliberately came and sat with Molly when she was sitting with Reid and then interrupted them when they were whispering together. Then also deliberately sleeping right up against her for no real reason… I don’t like people that lead others on and I didn’t like him after this part of the book. The rest he could have gotten away with being a casual flirt but not that night.

I really enjoyed Reid as a character. He was fun and quirky and I liked him since he met Molly and was wearing a Middle-Earth shirt! I’m in! I also liked that he was funny and knew that there was a time and a place for certain discussions. There is nothing worse than having an off conversation with someone and having to work the rest of your shift with them, so I liked that he knew his timing. I also liked that he seemed like someone you can easily start randomly talking to and end up friends and wouldn’t be weirded out by it. I like people like that.

I liked how understanding Olivia was and she also knew when something was up with Molly and she needed to get out.
Abby was a good character too, she was always there for Molly even though they were however far away from each other. Molly would only need to call her and she would be there. And can someone tell me in the comments if Abby’s best friend Simon is the Simon from Simon vs. the Homo sapiens Agenda (I haven’t read it so don’t spoil me please) I’m just curious?
I enjoyed Mina and how considerate she was most of the time. She tried to stay out of the family drama and if she was present she either pretended not to be listening or asked if they wanted her to leave. She knew that Cassie and Molly were important to each other and she tried not to get in the way of that.

Patty & Nadine were great parents! Firstly I love that we have parents in a YA book who are an actual part of the story as it’s rare but I also loved that their story was in this as well. The ending that I loved had a lot to do with them. They were fun Mums and would do anything for their children. Even if it was just going for a drive in the middle of the night because they knew one of the girls needed a distraction and to clear their head. They were always there for the girls but also the girls couldn’t get away with anything as they would definitely find out! I also love how openly breastfeeding was talked about in this book as most books just say something along the lines of ‘ baby was feeding’ but in this book, the author just went for it and I thought that was great!

And I think that is all the major characters, there were a few other characters that were present but not present enough to get an actual feel for them though!

Overall I really enjoyed this book! It was a quick and easy read and I love that it was based right around the time that Marriage equality was legalised all over America! I couldn’t help but get excited in this book! Especially seen as it hasn’t been legalised in Australia yet but there is a lot of talk about it at the moment! I loved the diverse characters and the plot was really good too! This is definitely a cute but amazing book!

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HAVE YOU READ THIS BOOK? WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON IT?!
IF YOU ARE GOING TO SHARE SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS THEN PLEASE WARN IT SO OTHERS DON’T GET SPOILED!

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