What I Like About You is the debut young adult contemporary novel from Marisa Kanter with an intriguing original premise about a love triangle between a boy, a girl, and her online persona.
Halle Levitt is the granddaughter of a well-known editor from a major publishing house, and after deciding at the age of 14 that she wanted to explore a career in the same industry, she created an alternate persona to avoid her brand being built on the back of family connections. As Kels from One True Pastry who reviews YA books and bakes amazing cupcakes to match, she’s developed a huge online following over the years on her own merit as well as formed important online friendships with a few peers through Teen Book Twitter. Life is looking pretty sweet for Halle!
This book features a diverse cast with Jewish representation in the form of Halle’s family and a few of her peers, plus multiracial representation as her love interest Nash is a quarter-Asian Jewish person. Her brother Ollie is also working out his sexual orientation as he believed he was gay and then experiences attraction to a girl from school, which is a nice acknowledgement of fluid sexuality and that figuring out your identity can be a work-in-progress. While the LGBTQ aspect doesn’t have a major focus in the story, Halle’s Jewish heritage is front and center which is wonderful. As their parents moved around so much while the kids were growing up, she and Ollie didn’t have a chance to connect much with their heritage until moving in with their grandfather in Connecticut to finish high school while their parents shoot a documentary in Israel. Jewish customs and traditions are incorporated into the storyline in a natural organic manner as they celebrate holidays with their grandfather and attend Shabbat services at the local temple where they engage with the rest of the Jewish community.
There is also a fantastic and emotionally resonant arc surrounding the family’s grieving process as this is set six months after the death of Halle’s grandmother. Their grandfather is still struggling with her loss, and while the kids do their best to support him and give him their strength to help him move on, they’re also still affected by losing their Grams. It was really sweet and poignant how big a role Grams played in this story despite not being physically present, as Halle continually reflects on her kindness, wisdom and fond memories of her instilling a love of books in Halle at a young age. I shed a few tears at a couple points because the author’s depiction of their grief felt completely raw and real.
“You can’t even imagine.” Gramps’s voice cracks. “It’s like half of me died.”
I exhale. Twist the key in the ignition and shift the car into drive.
“Me too. But you’re not dead, Gramps. You’re not.”
I’m struggling for the right words to say, the right way to tell Gramps, I am hurting too and I am here.
Instead, I hold my breath the rest of the ride home, thinking for a girl who loves words, I’m pretty much the worst at articulating the first draft.
One of the most compelling parts of the story was the depiction of how Halle managed Kels’ online existence. As a blogger and bookstagrammer, I’m often in awe (and jealous!) of my peers who are massively talented and amass tons of followers, and from the outside, it can look quite effortless. It was so interesting to watch how much time and effort Halle devoted to maintaining her social media profiles, because as much as you theoretically know that it takes a lot of work, reading about a character living this lifestyle and dealing with the daily trials and tribulations was eye-opening. The baking aspect was such a creative touch and added a more fun element to Halle’s book blogging as she frequently experimented with cupcakes and photography set-ups incorporating the goodies she baked!
Unfortunately, there is one main weakness that will be a drawback for some readers. By happenstance, Halle encounters one of her online friends, Nash, in the flesh after moving to Connecticut. What follows is a completely baffling and unnecessary deception as Halle decides NOT to reveal herself as Kels and instead lies to a boy who is meant to be her best friend, giving him a false backstory to avoid being identified as Kels.
This decision may sit better with other readers than it did for me, but Halle’s reasoning to keep Nash in the dark about her identity will never make sense. If there were legitimate stakes to Halle being revealed as Kels, that would have improved the storyline tremendously, but her excuses for keeping Nash in the dark are extremely flimsy. This isn’t the same as a mistaken identity plot where, for instance, a princess poses as a commoner and falls in love – one could understand her agonising over confessing who she really is because it would mean her partner having to come to terms that there is a whole other side to her that was hidden all this time. But in Halle’s case, Nash loves her as Kels and also comes to care for her as Halle, so there is literally nothing to lose. It also reads as slightly sadistic when ‘Kels’ is messaging with Nash online as he confides in her how confused he is about his interactions with Halle, because again, this is her best friend that she is intentionally hurting by blowing hot and cold, but she doubles down on maintaining secrecy at all costs.
“He’s into Kels.”
“Exactly. You are Kels – or did you forget that?” Ollie says. “I’m sorry, but you officially make zero sense.”
“I’m not Kels.”
“Whatever, Hal. You’re literally both sides of this love triangle. You win. But you’re like, determined to sabotage yourself.”
What makes this even more confusing is that after Halle’s decision to maintain two separate personas with her best friend, this results in her ghosting her long-time friends Elle, Amy and Samira because they’re Nash’s friends as well and she worries about compromising her secret somehow. Halle causes a lot of hurt and confusion to multiple people who are important to her, with her brother frequently calling her out on continuing this deception. Her frustration at him for pointing out the obvious makes Halle even less sympathetic because even with the narrative from her perspective, none of her internal justifications for withholding the truth sound remotely convincing.
This is a YA novel that is at its best when dealing with the delicate themes of loss and grief and how it’s okay to not be okay, to take time to figure yourself out and establish a new norm. The book blogger angle is enjoyable, feeling fresh and relevant with the incorporation of multiple platforms like Instagram and Twitter, which is very relatable given how big a role social media apps play in the life of today’s teens. Unfortunately the central conflict falls flat as Halle’s identity crisis felt contrived and makes it difficult to root for her at times. What I Like About You will appeal most to readers who enjoy protagonists involved in the bookish community, stories that have a major focus on social media and fandom identities or who are looking for Jewish representation.
What I Like About You is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers as of April 7th 2020.
Will you be picking up What I Like About You? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Can a love triangle have only two people in it? Online, it can…but in the real world, it’s more complicated. In this debut novel that’s perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Morgan Matson, Marisa Kanter hilariously and poignantly explores what happens when internet friends turn into IRL crushes.
Is it still a love triangle if there are only two people in it?
There are a million things that Halle Levitt likes about her online best friend, Nash.
He’s an incredibly talented graphic novelist. He loves books almost as much as she does. And she never has to deal with the awkwardness of seeing him in real life. They can talk about anything…
Except who she really is.
Because online, Halle isn’t Halle—she’s Kels, the enigmatically cool creator of One True Pastry, a YA book blog that pairs epic custom cupcakes with covers and reviews. Kels has everything Halle doesn’t: friends, a growing platform, tons of confidence, and Nash.
That is, until Halle arrives to spend senior year in Gramps’s small town and finds herself face-to-face with real, human, not-behind-a-screen Nash. Nash, who is somehow everywhere she goes—in her classes, at the bakery, even at synagogue.
Nash who has no idea she’s actually Kels.
If Halle tells him who she is, it will ruin the non-awkward magic of their digital friendship. Not telling him though, means it can never be anything more. Because while she starts to fall for Nash as Halle…he’s in love with Kels.
