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

P.S. I Like You by Kasie West
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Series: No
Release date: July 26th, 2016
Publisher: Point (Scholastic)
Length: 304 pages
Source: finished copy from publisher
Rating: IT'S SO FLUFFY I'M GONNA DIE

What if the person you were falling for was a total mystery?

While Lily is spacing out in Chemistry one day, she picks up her pencil and scribbles a line from one of her favorite songs on the desk. The next day, someone else has written back to her on the desk! Soon enough Lily and the mystery student are exchanging notes, and lyrics, and even sharing secrets. When Lily finds out that her anonymous pen pal is a guy, she's flustered -- and kind of feels like she's falling for him. She and her best friend set out to unravel the identity of the letter writer -- but when the truth is revealed, the guy is the LAST person Lily could have ever imagined it to be. Now that Lily knows the truth, can she untangle her feelings and gather the courage to listen to her heart?

From beloved author Kasie West (The Distance Between Us) comes an utterly charming story about mixed messages, missed connections, and the magic of good old-fashioned secret admirer notes.

THAT WAS SO RIDICULOUSLY ADORABLE I AM MELTING OMGGGGGGGGG just leave me here with my feeeeeeeelings I am a puddle of shippy goo

Kasie West's books almost always leave me feeling like that. But this one was easily my favorite of hers yet because it played on a lot of my favorite tropes and reminded me of two of my favorite movies, You've Got Mail and Shop Around the Corner.

I MEAN EVEN THE COVER IS DOING A YOU'VE GOT MAIL THING

Like YGM and SAtC, PS I Like You is about two people falling in love anonymously through the written word, only instead of email and letters respectively, Lily and Mystery Boy (whose identity is super not a mystery, really) fall in love through notes scribbled on and then left in a shared classroom desk. They have the same taste in music, and they're open and honest with each other in their notes, baring their souls and making me squee and giggle like a very calm adult person. This book proves the old adage that the way to seduce the modern woman is through her pop culture interests. It is known.





Of course, there's also a guy she goes to school with she hates MORE THAN ANYONE ALIVE, her personal nemesis, the Joe Fox to her Kathleen Kelly. Their relationship at the start of the book is basically insulting each other relentlessly, particularly Lily. I love a girl with a tongue too sharp for her to handle. I don't know what it says about me, but the moment two characters start having an insult-off all I want to do is mash their faces together.

Lily in a nutshell tbh

(I'm sure Perfect Note Boy and Public Enemy #1 are definitely not the same person. Absolutely not.)

You may consider that a spoiler, but part of the delight of this book is how predictable it is. That sounds like a slam, but it's truly not. This book has little variations on the trope that make it unique and amazing, particularly Lily's personally and her quirky family, but I liked reading it knowing the big picture of what would happen and wondering how exactly my shippy babies would get there. I mean, I knew the answer to every mystery th moment they were raised, but I didn't care. That was part of what made it just a lovely, breezy read. I squealed out loud and thrashed around my couch and giggled like a maniac for like four minutes straight.

kiiiiiiiiiss

But how is Lily supposed to reconcile with the fact that this hateful boy who has always been mean to her is so soft and squishy and funny on the inside??



I have a few quibbles, but I'll get to those at the end. First I'll talk about my favorite thing in this book (beside the SHIIIIIIIIIIIIP CUTE SHIP SHIP CUTE SHIPPY SHIP SHIP!!!!! ahem) and that's Lily. People are not going to like this girl, I'm so sure of it. She's hilarious, awkward, confrontational, constantly in error, and occasionally mean. She talks to herself, she insults people as easily as she breathes, she's kind of a snobby hipster about things, and I loved her to pieces.



I feel you, Lily. My only flirting technique also is to relentlessly insult people. But the best part of Lily is her completely off the wall sense of humor that confuses 99% of the humans who meet her.




Yep. That would be Lily.

I also loved how, in addition to SHIP SHIP SHIIIIP SHIPPITY SHIP SHIP CUTE BANTER SHIP SHIPPPPP THAT FALLS IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER'S MINDS AND PERSONALITIES AND SEES PAST THEIR FIRST IMPRESSIONS TO BE CUTE SHIPPY SHIPPERY SHIPNESSSSS--oh god, what was I talking about? RIGHT? I really loved Lily's family. Her loving, messy family is a huge part of her life, and though she lacks space and funds because her loving parents, two little brothers, and older sister (not to mention the new family rabbit with an unfortunate tendency to pee on guests) are always underfoot. More Abbott family shenanigans PLEASE.

So yeah. There's hate to love, my FAVORITE. There's secretly falling in love with your worst enemy, my OTHER FAVE. SO MANY FAVE TROPES. Serious YGM and SAtC feelings here. They fall in love on paper but hate each other in real life!! The angst!!!

Half a star off for a slightly stilted first chapter--i don't know why Lily's voice took a chapter to really GEL, but it did--and points docked for a bff with kind of no personality whatsoever (sorry Isabel). I also didn't love the mean girl stuff, and BOY was that final chapter super cheesy final chapter. But what am i talking about, bring on the cheese, bring on the swoons, that i what I'm HERE for, I lived for every second of this book and read it in one evening. EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL.