*sings* My love will save you ...... My lo-o-o-ove will sa-a-a-a-a-a-a-ave you!
This was an okay book, but it suffered immensely from the My Love Will Save You trope and just a bit of general Not Much Happening.
Meet Libby Strout. She holds the unpleasant title of 'America's Fattest Teen' Except, she's turned it around and she's losing the weight she gained after her mum died.
Now meet Jack. He's full of swagger but behind the facade he is struggling with a neurological disorder called prosopagnosia, or face-blindness. Like he literally cannot remember anyone's faces, not even his parents'.
Libby and Jack meet and of course they gradually fall in love. And Jack discovers that Libby's is the only face he can remember.
Aaaah.
Or bleeugh. Depending on how schmaltzy you like your YA.
For me, it was more bleeugh than aaaah. The whole tone of the book was a bit too navel-gazey for me. It was okay, I didn't throw it across the room in annoyance, or DNF, but not enough happened by a long chalk and what did happen was so over-analysed it got a bit tedious.
I really liked Libby, I thought Jack was a knob to start with and although I didn't like him that much at the end he at least developed and changed a bit as a character, so that was good. The writing wasn't atrocious but it suffered from being a bit purple-y, but it just needed more happening with the plot.
Also the thing where Jack can only remember Libby's face? FML.
Now I'm not a neurologist, and I don't have a medical degree, but I'd be willing to wager that falling in love can't cure a neurological disorder that's been caused by trauma. It just felt shoehorned in and yet I could also see it coming from the very first time Jack tells us he has prosopagnosia. It was so glaringly obvious that Libby's face would be the one he recognises, the author might as well have hung a big neon sign on it.
Also, how does any six year old manage to hide severe face-blindness from his family? And carry on hiding for twelve years? No, sorry.
And there was the mean girl trope. Jack's super-attractive ex-girlfriend fat-shames Libby and is generally evil for no discernable reason. Because, hey. That's just how attractive folk roll.
I know this book has come under a lot of fire for insensitive portrayal of characters who are neurodiverse and overweight, but I didn't find it offensive as much as shallow. I just didn't see that the author had thought much about these conditions while at the same time making them her characters' defining characteristics. I was a little bit pleased when I reached the end of this book and when I thought about it, like really thought about it, I realised that all I'd read was a navel-gazey, angsty romance. And not a very charismatic one at that.
2 stars