The unrequited love of the girl next door is the centerpiece of this fiercely funny, yet heart-breaking debut novel.
Fifteen-year-old Matt Wainwright is in turmoil. He can’t tell his lifelong best friend, Tabby, how he really feels about her; his promising basketball skills are being overshadowed by his attitude on the court, and the only place he feels normal is in English class, where he can express his inner thoughts in quirky poems and essays. Matt is desperately hoping that Tabby will reciprocate his feelings; but then Tabby starts dating Liam Branson, senior basketball star and all-around great guy. Losing Tabby to Branson is bad enough; but, as Matt soon discovers, he’s close to losing everything that matters most to him.
My Rating: 9.5/10
This is a hard book for me to review. I always seem to find it harder to review the books that I really loved, which is how I felt about this book. In fact, this was most definitely my favourite read of 2017.
Matt was a fantastic narrator and protagonist. He was sensitive with an overwhelmingly good heart.
For the most part, this book is just chronicling Matt's everyday life from his role as Black Bears high school basketball player, the best big brother to Murray and secretly pining over childhood best friend and neighbour Tabby.
I loved the family dynamics Matt has in this book and how not only his parents and brother have accepted Tabby as part of the family but his grandparents have as well.
Tabby and Matt's relationship starts to change when Tabby starts dating an older, popular athlete at their school - the hardest part of this for Matt is that the guy Liam Branson is actually a really nice and genuine guy.
The twist in the story comes around 160 pages in and there was absolutely no foreshadowing of it whatsoever and I had avoided spoilers so I found this twist really shocking.
Without spoiling anything, the events that take place after this twist is the real heart of the novel. The way Matt's family (especially his grandfather) help him out of the loneliness and isolation he finds himself in.
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