Absolutely loved the email style since u don’t really see it to frequently. Definitely could read over and over again

I've never read a book in the format of social media before and I've got to say it really added an element to the book. Being a 19 year old girl myself and being able to read about two girls connecting and going through a long distance friendship with some hardships in between was very refreshing. The characters were loveable and I enjoyed reading about them being in college. Only thing I could recommend to make this story better, in my opinion, would be to create a more interesting storyline.

I ended up really enjoying this! Although I'm not sure this is a book for everyone. This covered many so-called "social justice" topics that I could definitely see as being informative for younger readers, especially as it's done in such a fun easy to read way. The biggest issue I noticed was that at times the writing felt a bit "preachy". Knowing of the writers and being a fan of their youtube channel, I could tell that those parts had a humor behind them, but I'm not sure another person who is not as familiar with them would see it that way.
I enjoyed the text messaging/email format, but I am one to enjoy alternative formats so the book already had that going for it. I really loved getting to be able to see our two main characters maintain their friendship this way. I found it to be natural and relatable as that's how I (and most people) keep in contact with loved ones today. I will say the side characters were probably not as developed as they could've been, but I think that's due to the format more than anything.
Overall if you're looking for a fun, diverse (Both main characters are Jewish, one has a mental illness and the other identifies as Queer) read, and you possibly enjoyed the ttyl series back in the day I would recommend this.

A wonderful story about best friends! I haven't read a book as good as this in awhile!

This book has good reviews and in particular, I fell for the one by Francine Pascal, whose books I devoured as a teenager. Given the premise, I should have loved this book: Two best friends starting off their first semesters at college and starting a “long distance friendship”. The book is written as a series of texts and emails exchanged between the two and even talks about issues that a lot of teenagers face. Did I mention both best friends are feminists? In theory, this should have been a good book.

But here’s the thing: almost all of it is problematic. On every level. I could take each of the aforementioned teenage problems and dissect it to present to you its offensive bits. But should I give this review any more time than it deserves? Should you take longer to read my review than I took to read the actual book? No and no. I’ll just address a couple of them here to make my case and let you decide for yourself.

Frankly, it’s my personal belief that for fiction to be realistic, it can be raw and flawed and the characters can be unlikable etc. That aside, you know that feeling you get when you read about a character and feel they’re a token character? The character is present throughout the novel, but just isn’t… represented correctly? In this book, Ava Helmer suffers from anxiety and OCD, Gen has come to the realization that she’s bi. While reading I had two thoughts

Thought # 1: Are these characters here solely to bring these facts to the front? Because a) there’s no other character development so this basically becomes their identity b) if yes, couldn’t this have been dealt with more depth and sensitivity (and sensibility) instead of just skimming the surface.

Thought # 2: This representation is so damn offensive and the portrayal is complete rubbish. Ava uses her anxiety to act like an utter douchebag. People, anxiety is something that some of us real people live with and try hard to cope with (I know I do). It isn’t a convenient excuse to be rude and judgey. As for Gen’s sexuality – I get that she’s experimenting and doesn’t wanna be tied down etc., but that isn’t an excuse to hook up with basically anyone (including her transphobic teacher) and it is certainly not an excuse to cheat. Gen represents a trope that is SO not okay – one where bi and non-monogamous people take everything as a license to cheat. Nope, not done. It’s like a narrow-minded straight person wrote this character (and incidentally, I came to know a lot of this is autobiographical, so I’ve NO idea how that happened). And may I add, Ava’s ignorance of bisexuality was SO cringeworthy.

I don’t even know why this book has side characters; they were all useless – present only to show who hooked up with whom. Ava and Gen’s friendship was a little too much for comfort. Actually, let me rephrase that – Ava’s clinginess and Gen’s apathy was hard to read about.

Goodreads tells me a 2* rating means “It was okay” and I guess, to be generous or whatever, it was. With that said, I wouldn’t really want a teenager or young adult to read this book. Poor representation of the LGBT community; poor portrayal of those with mental illness.

I am sort on the fence with this one. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate either.

I really liked the concept. Both Gen and Ava are leaving home for the first time, and also, leaving each other. They have been besties throughout high school, and had grown to depend on each other in many ways. Ava got a lot of encouragement and support from Gen when it came to mental health issues, and Gen got stability from Ava and her family, while she had a less than perfect home life to deal with. We follow them and their friendship through that first semester, where they are figuring out a lot about being themselves and being themselves without each other.

I actually loved the format. I am a fan epistolary books, and I thought the format was successful for this story. The banter was witty, and I never felt bored. HOWEVER, I did find myself frustrated with the characters. I read a ton of YA, but I feel like I have found a book that I am "too old" for. For example, a big thing with Gen was that she didn't want to put a label on herself, but she labeled everyone else. She automatically dropped people she didn't even know into buckets and though I understand that she is young and still figuring stuff out, it got on my nerves. I am a big proponent in asking a good source for information. Ava thought she could ask Gen those questions that many wonder about, but feel like they can't ask. But instead of trying to educate Ava, she would berate her for wondering about any of those things. If you really want people to understand you, belittling and berating them is not the way to help, and she was supposed to be Ava's best friend. At the very end of the book, we get a sort of explanation for Gen's behavior, but it was too little, too late for me to forgive Gen.

I struggle a little with this book, because I am a character driven reader. I have to like and care about the characters, and it was a little hard here. I did love the format, and found the many of the exchanges interesting. I also thought an important time in a young adult's life was highlighted here, and I think there are readers, who will really appreciate some of the things that Gen and Ava are experiencing. Like I said, I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it.

I only finished this book because I had it for review. I would've DNF-ed it two chapters in. There was so much potential, but it got thrown out the window to pursue a format that's been excessively done in recent years, and it's starting to get a little old.
The plot got boring really quickly. It was painfully slow, and the characters just weren't strong enough to keep me entertained throughout the text. On top of that, there was offensive language used in the dialogue and stereotyping of the only characters I thought could be interesting.
This book wasn't for me. But I'm giving it two stars cause I've read way worse.

I did not enjoy the format of the book. It didn't click me at all. Also the storyline felt not interested to me as well. I dnf'd it.

This was a book that I was really anticipating and thought that I would really enjoy but it kinda fell flat for me. It was a good book I loved seeing both the friends perspectives and seeing how their life was different and was constantly changing around them and then seeing that ending bit was also interesting as well. Overall it was a pretty good book just wasn't for me.

I really wanted to like I Hate Everyone But You: A Novel by Gaby Dunn and Allison Raskin. The premise intrigued me and I found the format to be quite interesting. Little did I know that the format would end up throwing me some. It would take me a minute at times to remember what avatar was which girl in the text message components.

The premise was interesting and I am sure that some can relate to it. Two best friends are in colleges across the country. This book is how they keep in contact with each other during part of the time. Each navigates through classes, extra curricular activities, and interactions with people that interest them with the advice of the other one. Some advice is horrible. Some is great.

The characters did not really call to me as much as I had hoped that they would. Yes, I do know people like them but I did not find myself drawn to them. They find themselves stepping out of their comfort zones and quickly become people that they never thought they would be. I wish that I could say they truly grew from these experiences.

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for giving me a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I am rating this book Three Stars because I felt that the story was lacking at times and I did not feel invested in the characters. Also, the cover for the US edition is not appealing. I do not know about the other editions but the US one is just not good. I am not sure that I would recommend this book.


InkedBookDragon

This book took me a while. Wasn't a huge fan of the format and really didn't like the fact that for the first few chapters I couldn't differentiate which one was speaking. After pushing through though, I'm glad I did. It's not the best, but it is cute and it goes over one of the many different possible scenarios of friends who go to different colleges and are just completely different.

I loved the style of this book, written via emails and texts. I felt like the girls' relationship was realistic and likable without being cringey (which I often find when authors try to use current slang), however, it ended so quickly and suddenly, I was left wanting more!

Wednesday Books and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of I Hate Everyone But You. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Ava and Gen are best friends that have to face the world's challenges on their own as they go off to different colleges on the opposite sides of the country from each other. Told through a series of texts and emails, the communications between the friends show how life can change dramatically in a short span of time.

It seems like main characters in YA novels as of late suffer from anxiety, as Ava does. Many other novels include characters who are struggling with gender identity, as Gen does. The problem I found with this book was the fact that both characters do not seem all that authentic, despite the fact that the authors have given their readers a bird's eye view into their most personal thoughts. The format was so limiting that it did not allow for a real dialogue between the two main characters. Ava and Gen were supposed to be best friends, but the communication between them really was just relevant buzz words from today's society, as an attempt of giving some legitimacy to each of their stories. I will say that the format was not as off-putting as I was expecting and did tell the story. Readers who identify with either of the characters may get more from I Hate Everyone But You than I did.

I am a fan of Allison Raskin's and Gaby Dunn's YouTube channel Just Between Us (and their earlier work on Buzzfeed) and when they announced that they wrote a book together, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. I Hate Everyone But You is told in emails and text messages, a format I very much enjoy because it flows easily and mostly turns out to be a super fast read. From the beginning, I thought it represented both Allison's and Gaby's voice really well, in fact so much so that their characters seem like teen copies of themselves. Having that base knowledge of them, I felt like I understood when they joked or when they were serious about something. I definitely understand the people that were offended by some of the remarks, but I pretty much read the entire book in their respective voices and for the most part that worked quite well for me. Both, Ava and Gen, are deeply flawed in some of their ways of thinking, but at the same time try to grow (when they are not being completely stubborn and self-centered). I think they become better people because of each other, while also learning how to depend less on each other while exploring the world around them ... if that makes any sense.



Having said that, I am not entirely happy with the book. They really tried to pack everything there is in this one book (approaching topics such as finding your place in the LGBTQ+ community, anxiety, depression, mental health, addiction and many more), but at the same time didn't really have an engaging or comprehensive plotline. I am serious, if you would ask me to summarise what it was about in one or two sentences, I would really struggle to say anything more than a timid "friendship?". I've read quite a couple of novels that were character driven instead of plot driven and it worked fine for them, but because of the message format, I feel like there wasn't enough room for development and us getting to know the characters in depth to warrant such an approach. The two girls always knew more about each other than we would ever find out about them as the reader.

Ultimately it was a fun and fast read, but it could have been better in some aspects.

So yes, this is a series of texts and emails put into a book form. Which is a trend in books which may have been popularised by books such as Illuminae but I have seen it elsewhere. I don’t mind it as a format so long as the formatting is clear and coherent (unless it is deliberately not so, as in Illuminae). It can mean that you miss out on some content but in this book I think that was used to the advantage of the plot. You very much experience the plot through the filtered nature of personal emails and texts, painting lives to be more or less dramatic than they actually are, if that makes any sense?

As I expected, this book is very much written to be similar to the characters Gaby and Allison portray/are on their Youtube channel (write what you know!) which is in many ways a great thing, because it means you’re getting an own voices story about living with mental illness and also about being a queer woman. The disadvantage is that those characters are intentionally very intense which can make them a little unbelievable when written down.

There are times in this book where I felt quite uncomfortable. Often when Ava questions Gen about something to do with sexuality, gender and similar she is brushed off, Gen can get quite angry at Ava in a way which seems unreasonable to the reader. The problem with this is that Gen is right, it isn’t her job to educate Ava, but I think some readers have found this a little abrasive? I would argue that this isn’t writing a bad character, it’s more that the issues Gen is having which cause her to react so aggressively to Ava are not brought into the foreground enough. I think that readers of YA expected Gen to have the same level of emotional experience as Ava does and you get a little disappointed when she never seems to back down or apologise as fully as you expect her to. But, if I’m honest, I don’t think she needed to apologise for more than perhaps a slight overreaction.

This isn’t the happy teen-movie coming-of-age book where two girls go through a life changing transformation at college that the cover and blurb might suggest. I don’t think that makes it a bad book. I think it makes it a real world story of two very different people working out how their friendship evolves and changes while they figure out who they are.

Will it be everyone’s cup of tea? No. I can’t say it was 100% my cup of tea. There are a lot of things I would change if I had a genie (or a job as a book editor…dreams) but if you’ve ever watched any JBU and you’re willing to delve a little into what was really driving the creation of this book I think you’ll have a good time.

My rating: 3/5 stars (I liked it, I really did, 3 stars means I liked it)

By the way, I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Reading the description of this book, I thought it sounded like a good read. Thought it would be a book I would share with my friends and family. I was sadly disappointed.

Let's start with the character Ava. She was clingy, needy and basically needed Gen to tell her how to communicate with boys via text. Yes, I get she was in therapy (since age 4) and has social anxiety. Well as someone with social anxiety who also deals with the issue of abandonment (wasn't flat out said, but you could tell by how she could text Gen constantly and think the worst happened when she got no response) I found her character insulting. I know anxiety is different for everyone, but I don't think they portrayed it in a good light.

As for Gen, with all the partying and drinking she's doing; I got the feel that she was starting down the same path as her father. To top that off, I understand she's 18 and living her life, but the countless partners and expecting them all to want what she wants; not my thing. Also, for having been friends with Ava for so long, she got offended way too easily by things. Yes, it's harder to tell when someone is joking over text or email, but she took the avoidance route to the extreme.

Looking at the reviews on Goodreads, clearly some people enjoyed this book, which I'm glad. But this book was just not for me.

I've received a copy from the publisher and netgalley for a review. I'm a fan of Allison and Gaby's YouTube channel Just Between Us so I was very excited to get a chance to read this. 4.5 stars
I hate everyone but you begins with a series of texts and emails between two best friends Ava and Gen as they head off to college on opposite sides of the country.
As we see their friendship unfolds, we also get to see who Gen and Ava are and what they are going through. From first love to heartbreak, self discovery, coming out and mental health.
I really loved the friendship between these two characters it was realistic and honest. Ava is a introvert, she deals with OCD and anxiety which I found to be relatable and honest. Gen is open minded, very outgoing, is polyamorous and doesn't like labels.
This book discusses a lot of important topics. This is not your normal novel. Throughout the book it's only told through emails and texts which fit perfectly with the story. It made my reading experience better and fun. This book is funny, fast paced, cute, and lighthearted. You will enjoy it.

Did I like it? Loved it.
Is it funny? Very.
Are these bestfriends into each other? No, it’s not like that.

Can I just say, #friendshipgoals I love how Ava and Gen could forgive each other so easily, it makes me feel bad about myself but not too bad. I’ll always be the type to hold a grudge. Haha! When one of them finally decided to visit the other, sealed the deal to me. I thought they are the coolest friends ever.

They should add humor to the genre this book is in.

The ending kinda felt rushed though, but I felt the pain where the one character doesn’t seem to be feeling. Endings are the hardest to write when it’s a standalone and I feel like this was the right ending to it. I’m glad how it ended but it just felt rushed. (Keep reading) However, there was no other way around it, the time frame seems short to me because the sentences were shorter but days have actually passed in the story. So I completely understand.

I am crazy jealous of Gen and Ava’s relationship. I really wish I had a bestfriend whom I can comfortable talk to every single day and share my deepest darkest secrets with. But Gen and Ava’s relationship has been in the works since freshman year high school and we know how tough those years can be.

This is my first book where it’s only written in forms of emails and texts. I’ve never even read the types of books where the story is told through letters. I must say I was’t disappointed by my first pick. These girl’s humor really took me out of my reading slump.

"You are so brave and so strong that sometimes I forget someone like me can hurt you. But you need to remember that you can hurt me too."

4.25/5 STARS: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

I want to start off by thanking St. Martin's Press on NetGalley for supplying me with an ebook copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

**Also, I'd like to give a trigger warning of some kind before preceding. Anxiety, OCD, mentions of self harm, as well as transphobia are just a few of the topics mentioned in this book.

SPOILERS AHEAD: It is currently a quarter past four in the morning and I'm left with an endless circle of emotions, both good and bad after the completion of this book. A part of me can't find the words to put this into a proper review, while the other half of my brain won't shut off as it works to do just that. As you can see, the first half is losing. Before I bore you with the details of my observations and opinions, here's a glimpse into the story.

Ava and Gen, our leading ladies, take on college in this fast paced page turner set in both Boston and LA as they struggle to keep their long distance friendship afloat during their freshman year. Told entirely through emails and texts, we learn of their struggles and how they face them - both together, individually, and not at all.

I'll admit, I wasn't a fan of the layout in the beginning, but that quickly became an absent-minded thought as I delved further in. Caught up in their friendship, I almost immediately fell in love. Reading their exchanges, it seemed entirely real. Almost as if the authors played off of their own experiences, or even their friendship. As someone who hasn't watched their YouTube channel and only recently discovered who they are, that was merely my impression.

Ava, was an entirely too real character for me. And what I mean by that is that I saw myself in her struggles. Not even that, but her perspective on her mental health. As a character who largely suffered with anxiety and OCD, it was refreshing. Dealing with anxiety alone can be crippling, and I feel that they managed to convey that. My only issue was the mention of self harm. As someone who has struggled with cutting, I interpreted it as being slightly played off. And more importantly, not handled correctly. If at all.

Gen however, she reminded me of someone that I used to know. Humorous, clever, and mischievous - this particular girl had you questioning what was to come next. At first impression, you wouldn't have guessed that she was full of her own struggles. Raised with an alcoholic father and a mother whose only form of attention seemed to be manipulation, this brought up a wall that only Ava could really get past. Sometimes. Along the way, Gen began to further explore her questioning sexuality, while making decisions the other didn't entirely approve of, thus driving a wedge between them down the line. One that would later make or break the relationship.

But when the times were good, they were great! At one point, I may have almost inhaled one half of an Oreo while doubled over in laughter. Death via cookie. And here mundanes say books aren't exciting, pft.

Let's not forget all those pop culture references? Bonus.

I found this writing grabbed my attention because it explored important topics such as mental health, transphobia, and the LGBTQ+ community.

However, the reason I was unable to fully give it five stars is because for sometime, a lot was building up and then nothing really happened. Sure, they fought and attempted (well, Gen did) to go their separate ways. Did I want that to happen? Most certainly not, but I would have valued it more had things been resolved more clearly. Instead, we were left with Ava only partially I feel understanding her wrong in the matter and apologizing for the both of them as a result of panic and the fear of abandonment. It just would have been nice to hear more from Gen before the conclusion was met.

Overall, I would put this in the recommendations if you're looking for something to help break free from a reading slump, or if you're in need of something fast and fun!

Describing this book using only one word: fun
("Annoying" as a description word is a runner up.)

What I loved about this one:
• format
• humor
• versatility
• Ava! (She was fun little loyal cutie pie, loved her part of the story, cluelessness, mistakes and vibe in general. Would take her as a best friend in a second!)

What I hated:
• Gen

Before I say anything else, let me state I've pretty much grew up within LGBT community...and what I learned from it is recognizing "I'll be gay just to be cool" girls the moment I see them.
Gen is one.
Wanted to throw heavy objects at her just for that.
But add up being a shitty friend (kinda reminded me of Sloane from "Since you've been gone") and a stubborn, annoying, self-destructive mess, and she deserves to be banned from the book.

Still, I extremely enjoyed the novel and would recommend it if you're looking for a fun and fast read.