Love You, Hate You, Miss You/Leftovers

Love You, Hate You, Miss You is about a high school girl who's best friend died on the last day of the school year. Amy comes home from a psychiatric hospital at the end of summer,three months after the accident, and the story begins. Parts of the book are letters Amy writes to Julia, her friend who died in a car accident. When she gets to school she feels alone with no friends and feeling like everyone blames her for Julia's death, and of course, she blames herself. 

Though sad and well written, it's almost a little far fetched. It just seems like Elizabeth Scott was trying too hard to make this story as emotional as possible but almost seems insincere. 

It's also predictable which is weird for this kind of book. There should be twists, but the reveal of what little twists there were was lacking shock value. I give a lot of credit to writers of YA Fiction because a lot of them realize that kids are growing up fast and can deal with issues like death and other subjects that can be controversial. Love You, Hate You, Miss You could have been another fantastic novel showing a great insight of teenagers dealing with loss, but unfortunately it fell short.

It is a short book, however, and an easy read. It may not have been my cup of tea (wow, I really said my cup of tea... how OLD am I?), but some may like the subtleness of the book. If you're looking for a darker story that is a fast read and well written (besides the whole reveal of plots lacking shock) then you won't want to miss this story written by Scott. 

Yet another darker novel with even worse shock value. By time I got to the end I realized what a waste the story was. All the things that go on between best friends Ardeth and Blair are intense and very real. I believe that these girls are out there somewhere and it's sad to think girls really go things like this. It deals with sex, abuse, and bullying. But when the story wraps up and the big part of the plot is revealed, what they do doesn't seem that bad. I mean, what they do is messed up, but it's not as crazy as the other things that happen in the book. 

Also, it's hard to believe how close they are to the cop they're telling the story to, because there aren't many interactions between the three of them. I wouldn't recommend this book to people who can't deal with tough subjects. I wouldn't suggest it for other reasons too, mainly for the fact  that the ending was really stupid. That may not be the most eloquent description of an ending to a book, but really--- it was just stupid. Had Leftovers had a different/better ending, this book would have been pretty great.