PS I Like You - Review

PS I Like You

By: Kasie West

Publication: July 26th 2016 by Point

304 pages

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Source: Personal Kindle Library

( Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository )

*Note: The above links to Amazon and Book Depository are affiliate links. Affiliate links support giveaways for Somewhere Only We Know readers.

Goodreads description--What if the person you were falling for was a total mystery?

While Lily is spacing out in Chemistry one day, she picks up her pencil and scribbles a line from one of her favorite songs on the desk. The next day, someone else has written back to her on the desk! Soon enough Lily and the mystery student are exchanging notes, and lyrics, and even sharing secrets. When Lily finds out that her anonymous pen pal is a guy, she's flustered -- and kind of feels like she's falling for him. She and her best friend set out to unravel the identity of the letter writer -- but when the truth is revealed, the guy is the LAST person Lily could have ever imagined it to be. Now that Lily knows the truth, can she untangle her feelings and gather the courage to listen to her heart?

From beloved author Kasie West (The Distance Between Us) comes an utterly charming story about mixed messages, missed connections, and the magic of good old-fashioned secret admirer notes.

My experience with Kasie West is that I've enjoyed every single one of her books that I've read. And I've pretty much read them all and plan to read whatever she publishes in the future as well. I love that her books tend to be clean in language as well as physical content. And even though the plot isn't always full of twists and turns (although her Pivot Point series shows that she's capable of that), I still get sucked in and hooked. Her books are usually on the uplifting side. They're fun, fast reads that are full of first love. They leave me with the warm and fuzzies. And that's what you can expect from PS I Like You.

Initially, I remember thinking that the title for this book was too similar to PS I Still Love You by Jenny Han which released just over a year before PS I Like You, and I was a little disheartened that a more unique name couldn't have been chosen. And I also found the song lyrics written on a desk by two anonymous people to be very similar to Faking Normal by Courtney C Stevens. But after reading PS I Like You, the title completely fits and makes perfect sense given the story. And the song lyrics take on a bigger role in PS I Like You than I remember them doing in Faking Normal (if I remember correctly, the plot steers away from this area in Faking Normal where the song lyrics really continue to be a main theme throughout the entire book for PS I Like You).

PS I Like You did start out a little slow for me in that I wasn't completely connected to Lily and all of her oddities, but I was probably hooked by 15% which in truth isn't that bad at all. And I proceeded to devour this book. Actually, PS I Like You is the first book that I've stayed up late (12:30 am) to finish since my daughter was born almost two years ago. I probably could have put it down around the 85% mark to save the rest for the next day, but I just didn't want to. And of course, I paid for it the next day with having a super whiny, clingy child as well as everything wanted to break on me that day. But the point is, I was invested enough to feel justified (at the time) to read on until I finished it. And beyond that, the next day, I couldn't stop thinking about PS I Like You to the point where I actually contemplated picking it up immediately for a re-read. I haven't committed to doing that, but I also haven't started any other book yet either.

To discuss the characters like I want to and would normally do would probably give too much away about who Lily's pen-pal is and not knowing is part of the drive to keep reading for at least the first half of the book. However, this book deals with perceptions and assumptions and how what we perceive isn't always reality. It deals with how we can't really know what someone else is thinking even when their actions and motivations seem clear. It addresses how you never really know what someone else may be going through until they discuss it with you. It touches on crushes that we've had from a distance and how when we finally start to get to know someone we might find out that they're very different from what we imagined. There's friendship and family. Of course, there's music. I don't know if any of the music or bands mentioned are real--I didn't feel the desire to look any of them up. And more.

PS I Like You is my kind of book. It's clean, good, fun, heartwarming romance. It has characters that you can root for and care about. I didn't want to put it down and actually thought about re-reading it immediately upon finishing. I love Kasie West for her consistency in writing characters and stories that never seem to let me down. I think under normal circumstances a book like this would get 4 Stars from me, but the simple fact that I stayed up past midnight just to finish this one means I think it deserves 4.5 Stars. Have you read PS I Like You? What did you think? Let me know!