A review by library_brandy
It's Not You, It's Me by Kerry Cohen
2.0
After six months and 218 kisses, Zoe is blindsided when boyfriend Henry tells her he wants out--he wants to focus on his band, he says, and not have a girlfriend right now. Zoe takes the news calmly, but she won't take it lying down. Zoe writes him poems and sneaks them into his locker, his pants pocket (while he's in gym class), even his bedroom window, in her efforts to win him back. Zoe's best friends Julia and Shannon discourage her and tell her she's acting crazy, but she can't help herself. In an effort to preserve what's left of Zoe's dignity, Shannon and Julia devise Plan B: make Henry jealous. It's a plan that works, but maybe doesn't work exactly as intended....
Zoe, by all accounts, has been completely wrapped up in Henry since hey started dating, to the exclusion of her own friends and interests, and now that he's extricated himself from her life, Zoe has trouble coping with this loss of identity. It's a common story and realistically told--one can't help but have sympathy for Zoe, despite her whining and desperate behavior. Her friends are one-dimensional and Zoe is the center of everyone's lives: Shannon offers advice on moving on, Julia encourages Zoe to get back to the things she enjoyed, and her friend Sam's support amounts to his suggestions that he would be an excellent boyfriend now that Zoe is single again. The use of the present tense in writing forces the story to be more immediate than the plot warrants, and while there's hope for Zoe a month post-breakup, the characters never really change or gain much perspective. Some grammatical, syntax, and punctuation errors distract from the writing, though these, hopefully, will be fixed before publication. An okay book, but not a necessary one.
Zoe, by all accounts, has been completely wrapped up in Henry since hey started dating, to the exclusion of her own friends and interests, and now that he's extricated himself from her life, Zoe has trouble coping with this loss of identity. It's a common story and realistically told--one can't help but have sympathy for Zoe, despite her whining and desperate behavior. Her friends are one-dimensional and Zoe is the center of everyone's lives: Shannon offers advice on moving on, Julia encourages Zoe to get back to the things she enjoyed, and her friend Sam's support amounts to his suggestions that he would be an excellent boyfriend now that Zoe is single again. The use of the present tense in writing forces the story to be more immediate than the plot warrants, and while there's hope for Zoe a month post-breakup, the characters never really change or gain much perspective. Some grammatical, syntax, and punctuation errors distract from the writing, though these, hopefully, will be fixed before publication. An okay book, but not a necessary one.