I was drawn to this book by the positive reviews, yes, but first by the unbelievable cuteness that is this cover and title. (This impulse also kind of bit me in the butt, more on that later.)
You Should See Me in a Crown follows Liz Lighty, high school senior, who lives in a town that is utterly obsessed by prom. It is a Big Deal. The Queen and King even get scholarships. So, when funding for Liz’s college falls through (and she doesn’t want her grandparents to have to mortgage their house), she decides she’s going to run for Prom Queen.
Because Liz is a bunch of things traditional prom queens are not— black, nerdy, queer—there is immediate conflict both inside Liz’s head, and outside in the real shark/teen infested waters of her high school. She also has to deal with friendship stuff, as her former best friend is trying to worm his way back into her life, and there’s a new really cute girl at her school who is also running for Prom Queen.
This was as adorable as the cover promised, and it was really well written, especially for a debut. (I will be reading this author’s future works!) I really liked the friendship stuff the most (towards the middle of the book I was shouting and swearing) but the romance was cute as well, and Liz was such a wholesome, good character, but still flawed and human.
The only reason I’m not giving this five stars is that cover sort of misled me a little into thinking that Liz was going to be a little bit of a different character, and my expectations kind of made me feel weird for like the first 1/3 of the book. I don’t know, I guess I was picturing her as this sort of goofy, confident kid, but she’s actually really quiet and kind of shy, and afraid to show her true colors. Now that I’m thinking about it, I like the way the actual book played out rather than the version I was anticipating, because the inherent conflict of a confident character doing this would have been very different, and I don’t know what that could have looked like here. I think if I read the book again, I would probably up it to five stars, but I’m not sure.
Anyway, highly recommend!
CBR Bingo: Violet (plus three BINGO’s, and BLACKOUT!)
HAPPY BLACKOUT!
Thank you! Just under the wire..
Amazing! I am way behind but managed to sneak in a second bingo.
Well then, happy second BINGO!
That was me last year. I was something like 40 reviews behind, and ended up just review amnestying the lot. I was determined to blackout this year.