Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott
Thursday, January 03, 2013
Author : Elizabeth Scott
Genre : Contemporary
Published Date : May 26th 2009
Publisher : Harper Collins
Pages : 276
Source : Bought
Rating : ✿✿✿✿✿
From Goodreads :
Get this, I'm supposed to be starting a journal about "my journey." Please. I can see it now: Dear Diary, As I'm set adrift on this crazy sea called "life" . . . I don't think so.
It's been seventy-five days. Amy's sick of her parents suddenly taking an interest in her.
And she's really sick of people asking her about Julia. Julia's gone now, and she doesn't want to talk about it. They wouldn't get it, anyway. They wouldn't understand what it feels like to have your best friend ripped away from you.
They wouldn't understand what it feels like to know it's your fault.
Amy's shrink thinks it would help to start a diary. Instead, Amy starts writing letters to Julia.
But as she writes letter after letter, she begins to realize that the past wasn't as perfect as she thought it was—and the present deserves a chance too.
Review
This book had actually been sitting on my TBR list for quite a long time before I decided to pick it up just a few days ago. From the title, I expected this book to be an all-romance book about betrayal and wanting her used-to-be-lover back, ending in a sweet way. But boom, I was wrong. Totally, very very wrong.
"I’ll always remember taking your hand and telling you that everything would be okay."
—Amy
Love You Hate You Miss You told us about Amy, a girl who used to love drinking so much, until one night a car crash happened, and she was the sole survivor when her best friend Julia, was dead. And the truth : She was the one who caused that car crash.
Now living with guilt, Amy came back to her everyday life after that accident, only to see Julia-or something that reminded Amy of her-everywhere. Julia's locker which was decorated with silver stars with message for the dead, Julia's mother who despised her, her therapy session where she was forced to talk about her life and her grief, and ultimately, every single letter she had wrote to Julia in hope to atone for her grave sin.
The character, however, was not really that great. Some characters, like Julia, Amy, and Caro—who will soon be Amy's friend—were quite well-developed, as they were the main character of this book.
But some others, like the minors and side character, sometimes felt two dimensional and not too believable for me.
Amy, as our main character, as well as the narrator for this whole book, had especially a very strong a distinct voice. I really love it when a character added her own personality to the narration, and Amy did that just perfect. She was funny, sarcastic, and that truly reflected both on her speech and narration. And it really helped the reader to feel that they were really there watching the real scene happened, as well as sympathizing with Amy.
Julia—Amy's now-deceased best friend—although she was not alive by the time the book started, Amy description of her, as well as the letter, and the reminiscent of her everywhere around the school, made her seemed very believable and interesting. I love how she, as a best friend, was very nice and would do whatever to make her BF happy, while still managed to get a life of her own. It's nice to see a well-balanced character like Julia, and it's even nicer to see that she was strong and was able to stand up for herself.
Julia—Amy's now-deceased best friend—although she was not alive by the time the book started, Amy description of her, as well as the letter, and the reminiscent of her everywhere around the school, made her seemed very believable and interesting. I love how she, as a best friend, was very nice and would do whatever to make her BF happy, while still managed to get a life of her own. It's nice to see a well-balanced character like Julia, and it's even nicer to see that she was strong and was able to stand up for herself.
Caro—dubbed Corn Syrup by Amy and Julia—was actually pretty interesting too. It's not like her personality was bright and likable and lovely or whatever. She sucks, that was totally obvious. She followed Beth—the queen bee of the school—everywhere she went, saying "yes" and "that's right" and agreeing at whatever Beth threw at her, even letting go of her love just so Beth would not cast her away from her popular group, because they both liked the same guy. Her personality sucks, but that was actually what made her interesting. She was like a puppy everywhere Beth was around, but when she was alone at home-sometimes with Amy around-she poured all of her real feeling, which consist of hating Beth to death, and whole bunch of something similar. She was weak and swayed easily, but then again, if all the character was strong, what would the story became?
There are some thing I'm not quite fond of this book though, and that was one : Amy's attitude. It's just like she wanted to be happy but at the same time she felt she didn't deserve to be happy. At the right moment, I could really sympathize with her. But at the wrong time, and that happened few times, it was just simply frustrating And Two : the side character like Mel, Patrick, and Laurie. They were not that unimportant, seeing it was worth mentioning their name. But as for character who is not-too-side-character, they were just not described enough. I could't quite grasp their personality, and their action seemed to have no base. It was just vague, and that's not too great to be read.
Overall, if you love a contemporary story, and would like to read something about true friendship, betrayal, death, life, and teenage society where every action matters, you should definitely give this one a try.
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1 comments
I've read this book a while ago and I liked the concept, but there were quite some things I didn't like. The use of letters was great, it really added something to the storyline :) Nice review.
ReplyDeleteMel@thedailyprophecy.
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