For readers who:
- Enjoyed the humour in The Exact Opposite of Okay by Laura Steven
- Can relate to Mindy Kaling’s character in The Mindy Project
- Think that Ebenezer Scrooge might have made some good points about joy before his interaction with the three ghosts
Review:
Have you ever read a book where you knew that fellow readers were either going to love it or hate it simply because of how they will react to the protagonist of said book? Because boy, did I feel like that while reading about Phoebe, a fifteen-year-old whose mother once again leaves her behind while going on a job trip, dropping her daughter off at her best friend’s Kate so an adult is looking after Phoebe while she saves the world. Phoebe, who’s already stressed enough with GCSEs coming up and an accidental impregnation of her quasi-aunt Kate’s designer cats (yes, you read that correctly), loves to complain with dark humour and dry wit. In diary entries, Phoebe relives her time spent at Kate’s place.
It’s a peculiar kind of humour not everyone is going to mesh well with as it’s a mix of self-deprecation, gallows humour, and ruthless commentary on love and what it does to peoples’ brains, mainly how it melts them.
Phoebe’s struggles with understanding love were so relatable. I think a lot of teens and adults have lost best friends from their school days because someone got a boyfriend and suddenly had no time for anything besides being with or talking about that partner. It’s all part of growing up as our priorities and “alliances” shift and I think this story definitely brought that out beautifully. Phoebe isn’t against love, per se, she’s more against what love does to the people around her. This can be seen with her mother who loves her job helping people so much that she would abandon her daughter for six months to help out in an active warzone; and her best friend Polly getting a boyfriend and suddenly not really making time to spend with Phoebe. Phoebe doesn’t understand how loving more than one person can work out, but as her friend group expands, she learns that there’s enough love to go around for everyone.
I also enjoyed the budding romance and confusion between Emma and Phoebe, as the latter realised after nearly half a year that she might have been harbouring a crush on Emma for ages was basically the “did you just flirt with me?” “have been for the past year but thanks for noticing” meme brought to life and it made me chuckle quite a bit. Phoebe, who’s so adamant not to become like everyone else, such as being in love, incapable of speech, and only able to think about one thing, suddenly finds herself in exactly that situation and her flailing was highly entertaining.
What I will say, though, is that this is very much a slice of life story. We only get to see Phoebe’s diary entries after conversations and events occur, which means that secondary characters and places are rarely described or fleshed out; the focus seems to lie entirely on Phoebe’s emotional reaction to what happens in her daily life; the reader has to bridge quite a few gaps when it comes to places and appearances.
I also would have wished for a bit more resolution in the story as well. Plotlines like Phoebe’s stomachaches that pervade the entire narrative are never resolved; instead I am still wondering whether she just had butterflies in her stomach, so to speak, or a medical condition that should be looked after. Likewise, I was sad to see that the book ended without some kind of confrontation with Phoebe’s mother who never learns how much Phoebe hates her up and leaving for long stretches of time. The open ending definitely leaves something to be desired, which, perhaps, was the intention.
Delightfully blunt and authentically detailing a fifteen-year old’s struggle with love in all its forms, Love Is For Losers is an entertaining read with biting humour and witty dialogue that will make the pages fly by in no time!
Love Is For Losers is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of February 23rd 2021.
Will you be picking up Love Is For Losers? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
In this wry and hilarious queer romantic comedy, fifteen-year-old Phoebe realizes that falling in love is maybe not just for losers.
Did you know you can marry yourself? How strange / brilliant is that?
Fifteen-year-old Phoebe thinks falling in love is vile and degrading, and vows never to do it. Then, due to circumstances not entirely in her control, she finds herself volunteering at a local thrift shop. There she meets Emma . . . who might unwittingly upend her whole theory on life.
This is a laugh-out-loud exploration of sexuality, family, female friendship, grief, and community. With the heart and hilarity of Netflix’s critically-acclaimed Sex Education, Wibke Brueggemann’s sex positive debut is required reading for Generation Z teens. Think of this as Bridget Jones’ Diary, if it were written by Bridget’s daughter.
