She's the Worst

by Lauren Spieller

"Pitch-perfect...a surefire hit." -The Children's Book Review
"A sparkling homage to LA and a love letter to the difficult, mercurial, rewarding relationship between sisters." -Booklist

Ferris Bueller's Day Off meets 10 Things I Hate About You in this fun, contemporary novel about two sisters who have twenty-four hours to fulfill a pact and overcome the secret that threatens to tear them apart.

Sisters April and Jenn haven't been close in years. Jenn's too busy with school, the family antique shop, and her boyfriend, and April would rather play soccer and hang out with the boy next door.

But when April notices her older sister is sad about staying home for college, she decides to do something about it. The girls set off to revive a pact they made as kids: spend an epic day exploring the greatest hits of their childhood and all that Los Angeles has to offer.

Then April learns that Jenn has been keeping a secret that could rip their family-and their parents-apart. With only one day to set things right, the sisters must decide if their relationship is worth saving, or if the truth will tear them apart for good.

• ISBN10: 1534436588
• ISBN13: 9781534436589
• Publish Date: 3 September 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[theyaobsessed]

April and Jen are sisters that when they were younger were practically attached at the hip. In recent years, however, they barely speak outside of basic niceties.

Jenn is the older sister who spends most of her time when not busy with school taking shifts at their parent’s antique store. Shes more referee than anything else though as her parents are almost always fighting she spends more time settling arguments then making sales. She made the decision to defer college, for now, to help out at the struggling store.

April is the younger, less timid, more funloving sister whose loves to be sporty and the center of attention. She feels bad for her sister and in hopes of cheering her up plans an entire day that provides are a quite literal walk down memory lane. Visiting places that had special meaning to them when they were close. April hopes this will cheer Jenn up. She is however in for quite a rude awakening.

I am not going to say more about the plot as I do not want to give too much of the story away. I just want to pique your interest. I enjoyed reading this book. Usually, road-trip type ya novels are not my thing. I do not know why that is, just never really been my thing. This one, however, wasn’t horrible. I like the little details that were included like how every stop April had was accompanied by a throwback type photo of them at the location when they were younger. It made me nostalgic for a time when life was much less complicated and my biggest decision was a big chapter test in Algebra. (man I hated math!)

[Sam@WLABB]

In an effort to reconnect with her older sister, April plans a little walk down memory lane filled with various L.A. locations, which she thought were meaningful in their shared history. April may have missed the mark, but the outing resulted in something positive for these two after all.

I love a good sister story, and this one delighted me.

Jenn and April were like night and day, but once upon a time, they were thick as thieves. I was really rooting for these two to mend those fences and renew the bond they once had, because with the way their parents were, they sort of only had each other to rely on. Like with most relationships, this one was messy, but it was salvageable. I didn't feel as though either sister did anything bridge-burning to the other. They just sort of grew apart as their interests diverged, and they developed other meaningful relationships outside of their family.

I thought the the all-in-one-day adventure the girls embarked on was great. Spieller not only made each stop on the itinerary fun and interesting, but she also used it as an opportunity for these young women to examine their relationship and themselves.

There are definitely going to be people, who will declare, that all of this could have been avoided had they communicated better, but this happens in the real world. People let those important to them drift out of their lives, because they don't like to confront uncomfortable realties, and those people can fade from their lives, permanently. Spieller did a great job helping me understand all the emotions involved in this situation. She explained how and when the breakdown occurred, and why they hadn't done anything previously to remedy the situation. Because of all those things, I understood and therefore, accepted the situation.

Though, I am not going to pretend like I didn't enjoy the romantic drama (there was one romance I was all in on), I wish, perhaps that that time was used differently. I would have liked a little more closure/attention regarding the parental situation. Their troubled marriage played a big role in the story, yet, I am left worrying about their future together.

Regardless, I enjoyed seeing these two sisters try and heal their broken bond. It was fantastic seeing the sights with them, and I was extremely pleased with the resolutions they reached, both with respect to their relationship with each other and their individual issues.

*ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

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