Review: You and Me and Him by Kris Dinnison

What: You and Me and Him by Kris Dinnison

Who: HMH Books for Young Readers

When: July 7th 2015

How: A copy of this novel was provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for review via Edelweiss.

“Do not ignore a call from me when you know I am feeling neurotic about a boy. That is Best Friend 101.” —Nash

Maggie and Nash are outsiders. She’s overweight. He’s out of the closet. The best of friends, they have seen each other through thick and thin, but when Tom moves to town at the start of the school year, they have something unexpected in common: feelings for the same guy. This warm, witty novel—with a clear, true voice and a clever soundtrack of musical references—sings a song of love and forgiveness.

That’s it. I am officially cursed with incorrect synopses.

When I requested You and Me and Him, I thought that it would be told from two perspectives: a straight girl, and a gay boy. I also thought that they would both fall in love with the same bisexual guy.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. You and Me and Him is told only from the perspective of the straight girl, and the guy that both friends fall in love with is also straight.

So I am more than a little annoyed that this book seemed to be LGBT+ from the synopses and then turned out to be something I would have had little to no interest in if it was not for my synopsis curse.

I didn’t particularly like any of the characters. Maggie is constantly in a state of “woe is my life” over her weight, and this does not change by the end of the book. I appreciate the fact that she wasn’t your typical character that is gorgeous and blows everyone away with her physique, but I was also really disappointed that nothing was touched on regarding the fact that being overweight doesn’t necessarily mean you’re unfit. Or that being overweight definitely doesn’t mean that you’re unattractive, or that people would never want to date you. The number of times Maggie said “I mean, look at me” when she was talking about never having a boyfriend or never having been kissed was outrageous. The body shaming in this book was a huge let down.

I did not warm to Nash. I thought he was a bit of a Manic Pixie Dream Boy with a side of extreme drama queen. When Maggie was lamenting over the fact that they were fighting, I thought that she might have been better off without Nash, anyway. He said some pretty shitty things to her, and he overreacted to the nth degree.

Tom wasn’t anything. I didn’t see him as anything but a love interest for both Maggie and Nash. I had no clue who he was supposed to be as a character. He shamelessly flirted with everyone, giving the wrong idea to Nash and even to Maggie, to an extent. And then he tried to pass it off with some story about how he was a complete jerk in the past? Uhm, leading someone on is also a jerk move, you idiot. Even though I didn’t warm to Maggie or Nash, they both could have done better.

The owner of the record store that Maggie worked out was a flat two dimensional character straight out of a fairytale. I don’t even remember his name. The only purpose he served was providing sage, out of this world wise advice to Maggie, and to care about her more than anyone else. To be honest, I think some of his character would have been better off as a parent, because I also found it a little creepy.

You and Me and Him ended openly, and was just the cherry on top of this mediocre cake.

© 2015, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.