Book Review of The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

I'm just going to come right out and say it: I'm a fat Jewish girl who hated this book. Every page I turned, I kept flipping to the back to see how many pages were left. It felt like in The Upside of Unrequited, Becky Albertalli sought to capitalize on a Jewish identity that feels from the book like it is more important to her commercially than it is personally. I found that frustrating and disappointing. (I'm not saying it is necessarily--I certainly can't tell that as a reader--I'm just saying that, if there's anything beyond the surface there, it doesn't come across in the book.) Oftentimes, even when it is a non-observant Jewish character portrayed by a Jewish author, the book feels more personal to me, somehow. (A good example of this done well in YA is Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, when Norah describes the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam to Nick.) In this case, the way it was handled really drove me away from the protagonist, the author, and the story. I also truly despise the cover design, but there are plenty of books I love with covers I hate, so I certainly wasn't going to let a pesky little thing like that slow me down when I came across it at the library.

I also had a problem with the way Molly talks about her body. To me, as a fat girl, there were lots of glaring moments when I was sure someone in Molly's situation would feel uncomfortable and (at least her interior monologue) would comment on it. Nope. Nothing. Also, I'm supposed to believe that Molly doesn't immediately unpack some of those painful body image issues the second she mentions that her twin sister Cassie is slender and willowy? Um, I'm sorry, but I'm just not buying that. People (unfortunately) constantly compare twins to each other, and I doubt she wouldn't compare herself to her twin--especially since, from the way Albertalli constructed Molly's character, it shows her constantly mentally contrasting herself with Cassie in lots of other ways. If this issue were handled realistically, Cassie's body being society's definition of beautiful or acceptable in comparison to Molly's own body would be a real hot-button topic, and it would be dealt with like one from the beginning of the story.

Aside from the problems I had as a diverse reader of a book that is supposed to have a main character representing two diverse demographics of which I am a part, I also just couldn't get behind Albertalli's style in general. It felt awkward and uncomfortable to me, like when an adult who has no idea how to talk to teenagers tries to be cool and use whatever they assume are the cultural touchstones as inroads for conversation. ...except, they aren't. The stuff they're talking about isn't even relevant to the high schooler they're trying to talk up. The dialogue feels too snappy and overwritten, like a rejected episode of Gilmore girls.

And, speaking of the dialogue, just how much does one book need to have about vaginas, anyway? I mean, it is one thing to be open and accepting, and even have a jokey one-liner or two, but I even have those parts, and I didn't want to spend an entire YA novel reading supposed-to-be-hilarious references to them. I get that there are two central Lesbian relationships in the book, but letting them speak for themselves in terms of showing those women interacting with each other and backing off a bit would've been a stronger presentation of the characters and themes. (For example, the scenes where Molly and Cassies moms were simply interacting with each other were much better and added more to the book than the constant dialogue with the female genitalia-based jokes.) It just kind of felt like Albertalli was trying to hit her readers over the head with the word "labia" again and again.

Because of the ridiculous dialogue, stilted pop culture references, and constant female anatomy talk, I had trouble actually getting to know (or care about) Molly and Cassie. That, coupled with my issues about how the Jewish and fat girl aspects played into the story and characters meant I basically wrote them off before the halfway point of the book--making Albertalli's storytelling and character building rather ineffective. Meanwhile, I found it difficult to believe that Reid (Molly's potential love interest at work), the shy LOTR t-shirt wearing nerd, is so confident and outgoing. I've known many guys who fit the type it felt like Albertalli was going for there, and Reid just seemed way off-kilter to me, like the visual cues included in his description didn't quite match the other characterizations of him.

All in all, The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli felt like one of those creations a little kid makes at a DIY fro-yo place: all of the ingredients are good (tons of diversity, acceptance, humor, and wit), but they aren't well-balanced and assembled in a way that makes sense together, so the end result is mostly left in the dish to melt. I wouldn't recommend this book.