Book Review: By Your Side by Kasie West

Title: By Your Side
Author: Kasie West
Published: 2017
Source: Edelweiss

Summary: Autumn was looking forward to the holiday weekend, hanging out with her friends at a snowy cabin in the woods, and maybe getting to actual girlfriend status with Jeff. But then the library closes early for the weekend, locking her and Dax Miller in together. No phones, no heat, and nobody's coming to rescue them. Dax is taciturn and mysterious, with a bad reputation, and he clearly isn't any happier with the situation than she is. Will they survive until the library re-opens?

First Impressions: This was very sweet! Not sure why the library didn't have phones but okay. I want to read more about the depiction of anxiety disorder.

Later On: The whole trapped-in-a-library thing required a lot of suspension of disbelief on my part, if only because I know full well how many phones any library has, and there was no mention of a power outage that would have knocked them out. But once I leaped that hurdle, I was able to enjoy the forced proximity of the locked-in trope, as they both let their guards down and learn to enjoy each other. Their newfound closeness chills once they return to the real world, with the pressures and expectations of other people affecting their behavior again.

A little about the portrayal of mental illness in this book: Autumn has anxiety and struggles with that during their involuntary lock-in. She ends up confiding in Dax - the only person she's ever told - and he is sweetly supportive, but she still keeps it a secret from her other friends, until a dramatic moment later in the book. I haven't seen anxiety in books a lot, at least as a named and treatable mental illness. Often what you get is a character portrayed as an uptight control freak. Autumn approaches it as an illness, not a personal flaw, but she's still self-conscious about it, which felt real. And most of all, it was an aspect of her character but not the defining characteristic.

Overall, this was a light, sweet romance with some more serious elements that didn't overwhelm the tone.

More: Disability in Kidlit

First Impressions: The Way to Game the Walk of Shame, The Darkest Hour, P.S. I Like You

Title: The Way to Game the Walk of Shame
Author: Jenn P Nguyen
Published: 2016
Source: Edelweiss

Summary: When good-girl Taylor wakes up in genial player Evan's bed with no memory of how she got there, she knows her reputation is ruined. The only option is to convince Evan to pretend to be her boyfriend for awhile. It'll salvage her reputation, give him a breather from his predatory ex, and then they'll break up with no hard feelings! Yeah, that always works out exactly as planned.

First Impressions: This was pretty fun, but there was a real "not like other girls" thing with Taylor that made me uncomfortable. It was really heavily implied that Evan had been hanging out with all the wrong girls (dirty nasty sex-having girls like his ex, who did everything but hum "Barracuda" every time she appeared on the page) and he just really needed a Good Girl to fall in love with. See? Uncomfortable.

Title: The Darkest Hour
Author: Caroline Tung
Published: 2016
Source: Edelweiss

Summary: A few years ago, Lucie was a regular Franco-American girl, living her life and waiting for her brother to come home so they can escape their oppressive home life. Then her brother died, and she ran away to Paris to help the war effort any way she could. That turned out to be becoming a spy. But now she has to contend with deception and murky moral decisions at every turn - not only from the Nazis but also from the people she's working for.

First Impressions: The pacing was all off in this one. It felt like it should have been a couple of books, or like it started or ended in the wrong places. Just very confusing. I rarely advocate for something to be a trilogy or duology instead of a single title, but this might have benefited from being broken up in that way.

Title: P.S. I Like You
Author: Kasie West
Published: 2016
Source: Edelweiss

Summary: Lily Abbott is getting love letters every day in Chem class from a mystery correspondent. They write back and forth, sharing parts of themselves that they've never revealed to another living being. She's convinced they're from adorable, soulful Lucas. Just as long as they're not from her best friend's ex and snotty class clown, Cade. That would be horrifying! Right?

First Impressions: So it was pretty blindingly obvious who the letter writer was, but I like the way it played out. Kasie West does really enjoyable YA romantic comedy that unashamedly goes for the tropes and makes them mad fun instead of tired and stale.