Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott

It's been seventy-five days, and Amy still doesn't know how she can possibly exist without her best friend, Julia - especially since it's her fault that Julia's dead. When her shrink tells her it would be a good idea to start a diary, Amy starts writing letters to Julia instead. As she writes letter after letter, she soon discovers that the past wasn't as perfect as she thought it was - and the present deserves a chance too. With sarcastic humor, cutting insight, and beautiful prose, Elizabeth Scott delivers a searing story of a teenage girl struggling to put the pieces of her life back together. (Stolen from back of the book. It's too late for me to come up with something on my own.)

So as I was writing this review, I kept getting the two characters names mixed up. I'm thinking that it's an indication of the (non) effect that this book had on me. I had high expectations for Love You Hate You Miss You (as I do for all of Elizabeth Scott's books), but this one wasn't for me. I'm sure other people will love it, but it just didn't leave an impression on me. I didn't totally hate it - it was merely average. First off, I didn't like Amy at all. And that's a problem if you can't find any redeeming qualities in your main character. She took all the blame for what happened to Julia. I'm not going to say what happened (we'll let that be a surprise) but it was not Amy's fault at all. Maybe like 10 percent, but not enough to be called a murderer. She just moped around, complaining, feeling bad for herself. And since it wasn't her fault, I wanted to yell at Amy to get over herself. Instead of this book being about Amy's grief and healing, it was about her self-centeredness and unwillingness to let anyone help her. It drives me crazy when people think they're too good for therapists and give one word answers in response to tough questions. I don't know, maybe I'm being too harsh. Since I've never been in Amy's situation, I guess I can't really judge her. She did get better as the book went along, and did begin to heal, so that's good.

Okay, I'm tired of ranting about the stuff I didn't like. Things I did like include the title. That sounds shallow, but I think it perfectly sums up the book. I liked Amy's parents and thought they were really nice people, even if Amy couldn't see it. I also liked Amy's sort-of friend Caro. She was actually a really interesting person and I respected her a lot at the end of the book. So this was the novel of supporting characters (except the love interest Patrick, but that's a whole other story). Anyway, even if I didn't enjoy this book so much, I still really like Elizabeth Scott and think she's a good author. I can be critical sometimes, so if you think you can sympathize with Amy, you'll probably enjoy this book.

6 out of 10.

Release Date: May 26, 2009