Title: Love, Life and the List

Author: Kasie West

Pub. Date: December 26, 2017

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Seventeen-year-old Abby Turner’s summer isn’t going the way she’d planned. She has a not-so-secret but definitely unrequited crush on her best friend, Cooper. She hasn’t been able to manage her mother’s growing issues with anxiety. And now she’s been rejected from an art show because her work “has no heart.” So when she gets another opportunity to show her paintings, Abby isn’t going to take any chances.

Which is where the list comes in.

Abby gives herself one month to do ten things, ranging from face a fear (#3) to learn a stranger’s story (#5) to fall in love (#8). She knows that if she can complete the list, she’ll become the kind of artist she’s always dreamed of being.

But as the deadline approaches, Abby realizes that getting through the list isn’t as straightforward as it seems . . . and that maybe—just maybe—she can’t change her art if she isn’t first willing to change herself.

This will be a spoiler free review.

This book was cute AF and I wish I had a guy best friend who was in love with me. Like, jfc. If I could change one thing about my life, I would give myself a guy best friend and we’d fall in love and be happy forever. Shit, if I could make my life a YA contemp rom com, I freaking would.

Do you ever just feel #foreveralone? Because sometimes, when I read contemporary rom coms, I do. Actually, quite often. And it doesn’t help that guys in books, even when they fuck up, set the standards and expectations so incredibly and almost unfairly high…

Basically, hardly any guy (in my experience) can meet those standards which, when you think about it, aren’t really that high at all.

Y’all, why can’t I just disappear into a book. I think loneliness during pandemic is getting the better of me.

Anyways, I loved this book. I read it in one day and had family member honestly impressed that within a handful of hours I’d finished this book. It’s 400 pages, but it’s a pretty quick read. You end up not wanting to put it down because you become so invested.

I liked Abby, but jfc I’m a sucker for Cooper. The “unrequited feelings” plotline is one of my favorite things ever, because drama, but that boy.

If you’ve read this book, you know full well what secret he’s harboring. I’ll be honest, I was a bit surprised, but also, not really, because this is a YA rom com and they’re pretty formulaic. But in retrospect it was so freaking obvious what his true feelings were. Like that moment when Abby is in his room, staring at the pictures and taking care of him. Ugh, that scene on the bed.

This whole review is just going to be me, whining about how I wish my life played out like this rom com.

Then when shit hits the fan – like it always does in these kinds of books – my heart just broke. Like, I felt so bad for both of them. More so Abby, because let’s face it, Cooper done fucked up.

But boys are stupid and don’t know how to express their emotions properly.

I don’t know what else to say other than gush about how much I loved this, enjoyed it and immediately went and bought book 2. I just want to talk about every little thing I loved, but those would be spoilers, and this is a spoiler free review. Just know that I fully loved this book, and if you’re a contemp rom com fan, a Kasie West fan, or just want something quick and fun to read, you should definitely check this out. I will continue to read books like this because they’re fun, they don’t take much brain power and they’re just completely enjoyable. Kasie West knows how to write a book that makes you forget about the real world for a minute and just get lost in another world – which is really needed in 2020.

Hopefully you check this book out, and if you do, let me know what you think – or what your fave Kasie West book is!