Book Review: P.S. I Like You by Kasie West

Source: OwlCrate sub box (August 2016)

Synopsis:

Signed, sealed, delivered…

While spacing out in chemistry class, Lily scribbles some of her favorite song lyrics onto her desk. The next day, she finds that someone has continued the lyrics on the desk and added a message to her. Intrigue!

Soon, Lily and her anonymous pen pal are exchanging full-on letters—sharing secrets, recommending bands, and opening up to each other. Lily realizes she’s kind of falling for this letter writer. Only, who is he? As Lily attempts to unravel the mystery and juggle school, friends, crushes, and her crazy family, she discovers that matters of the heart can’t always be spelled out…

Review:

I read this book as part of the OwlCrate-A-Thon reading challenge in February. I gave it a bit of a lower rating on Goodreads because it felt a bit juvenile, a bit more junior high than high school.

I liked this little romance, don't get me wrong. It was cute. Like, super cute. Too cute.

I liked our main character, Lily. She's funny and sweet, and super loyal - all qualities I like to think that I possess. I did not like Cade, and to be honest, I wasn't super fond of her friend Isabel. She's sweet and all, but... I don't know. Something about her I didn't like.

I adore writing letters, it is one of my favourite past-times apart from reading and binge-watching Netflix... So the fact that this story revolves around passing notes in class (uh, yeah, I did that!) and writing love letters, I was into it. I had fantasies in high school of a story like this playing out for real in my life: me writing notes on a desk and somebody answering, and we fall madly in love... *stares dreamily into space* 

So, aside from the fact that the main element of the story is something I love, and the fact that I like and relate to the main character, and dreamt of something similar happening to myself in high school... despite all of this, I couldn't give the book more than three stars, because I didn't like who Lily's secret letter writer was. It was predictable, I saw it coming (I mean, who else could it have been, really?), and I didn't like it. I mean yes, he was a different person in his letters, and yes it was sweet how they seemed perfect for each other on paper, but... I just didn't ship it, ok guys?! 

Like I said, it was super cute. I would highly recommend it to a high school student who loves romance (or an adult who loves high school romance...), but I didn't completely love it.

Goodreads rating:

Progress Report - February 2017

A couple weeks ago I participated in the weekly meme called It's Monday! What are YOU reading? (read my post here) and mentioned that I would be publishing this post last week, but I didn't get around to it. Whoops! I am going to try to make a habit of posting updates every month to summarize my reading progress.

 

As I mentioned at the beginning of the year, I've set myself a Goodreads goal of 35, but am unofficially aiming to reach 40.

 

In January I read six books and had aimed, for February, to finish The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, a few OwlCrate books, and some of my more recent acquisitions. It wasn't noted, but understood, that I also intended to read Anne of Avonlea, for my online book club reading challenge. Partway through the month, OwlCrate introduced their first annual OwlCrate-a-Thon reading challenge, which was to help us get through some of our unread OwlCrate books, and I decided to participate. The requirements for the challenge were 1) to read at least three books, 2) read one fantasy and one contemporary, 3) the one you've had the longest. The challenge ran from March 11-25.

 

So, in February I ended up reading five books: Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth, The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George (finally!), This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab (OwlCrate 1: fantasy), P.S. I Like You by Kasie West (OwlCRate 2: contemporary), and The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry (OwlCrate 3: longest owned). I also listened to  All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer. I didn't mention in my January post that I had also listened to The Woman Next Door by Barbara Delinsky.

 

I barely read any of Anne of Avonlea, which I felt pretty bad about, so in March I am hoping to burn through both that and Anne of the Island. I am currently reading Ever the Hunted, I would like to read Caraval and a few others, but I'm kind of leaving it open. There are always books I'd like to read, but then when it comes time to pick up a new book, I'm not in the mood for those. So, we shall see!


So, my total books read in 2017 at this point is 13 out of 35, which is 37% complete - 8 books ahead of schedule! At this rate, I could potentially read over 70 books by the end of the year. That would be awesome! Especially if I could come to terms with getting rid of the ones I didn't love out of those I've read... *wink, wink*