Perfect You

When I am nervous I am an utter complete total bitch.  And woe to anyone who tries to be nice to me.  When I was in high school this led to many fights with my mother, who did not have the option of hiding out in the shop like my dad did while I got ready for some event.  Now I know what is going on and I try not to be so awful, but sometimes I just can’t help it . . .  which is why I related to Kate, particularly in her relationship with Will.

Everything is going wrong in Kate’s life – her father has quit his job and is selling vitamins at the mall (and not very successfully), her brother has graduated from college and moved home, her best friend isn’t talking to her now that she is popular, and now her grandmother is moving in and causing tension in the family.  There is no way she is going to believe, or trust, that Will might like her.  And she is determined not to like him.  Which is why it is so confusing when he kisses her, or she kisses him, or whatever it is that is happening.  Kate doesn’t do a tremendous amount of growing . . . but then again she has a lot of reasons to be bitter and angry, and it isn’t like they go away in some magical Hollywood moment at the end of the book.  But she does enough for the book to be satisfying.  And she is funny, this rescues her from being whiny.

This is the second Elizabeth Scott book I’ve read recently.  I finally got around to Bloom, which I also liked.  But this one I liked just a little tiny bit more.