This was totally bizarre as the title is about Phoebe, but Phoebe is only around really, in main character Nicks head. This was really hard to follow and I strongly disliked the Nick character.

Complete waste of time. This book is uninteresting and far-fetched. The main character has a fictional crush that is ruining his life, and the problem is never dealt with.

**Thank you so much to Simon Pulse for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review!**

I had been in the mood for a good contemporary for a while, so I was excited to get the chance to read this one!

what i liked
-It's a good summer setting. Nick goes to stay with his Uncle just for the summer, which makes for a perfect summer read.
-It was a super easy read. It wasn't too heavy of a book to read, which was nice.
Nick was an interesting character. I actually liked reading about him, which isn't always the case for me when I read contemporaries!

what i disliked
-The title of the book is literally Phoebe Will Destroy You, yet Phoebe was barely a side character in this book. She was probably in it for about 30 pages. It was upsetting, because I thought it was going to be a little more of a romance, but it wasn't. The title was very misleading.
-There was nothing that really stuck out about this book. It didn't really have anything interesting to me that made it different from many other contemporaries.

5 stars for the story of the mysterious Phoebe and the lovable Nick!
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon Pulse for the opportunity to read and review Phoebe Will Destroy You by Blake Nelson!
Nick visits relatives for the summer, getting a break from his mother and her alcoholism. Nick and his parents live in a college town and his parents both work for the university and since his mother returned from rehab, she seems bored and distant to Nick and her husband. The relatives he visits live in a laid back town and he’s looking forward to seeing them and being in a different environment. Nick meets quite a few new people, makes friends and they have interesting experiences together, but there’s one person that gets into his mind more than anyone else- Phoebe. She’s a complete mystery and that’s a big part of why Nick finds her attractive and appealing. Nick imagines a future with Phoebe but it always involves changing some part of Phoebe’s life to create that future. The ambiguity of the ending left me hoping that Nick is enjoying his present and continues to enjoy his future with or without Phoebe in it. 5 stars for the lovable Nick!

Blake Nelson's latest novel is unassuming and important, but it doesn't hit the same emotional marks as some of his previous novels, like Paranoid Park and Destroy All Cars. The book starts with high schooler Nick acknowledging the pain and awkwardness of his mother's return home after a stint at rehab, which is the catalyst for him staying with his aunt and uncle for the summer and working at his uncle's Happy Bubble car wash. Nick's summer away is an exciting step towards independence, but the experience is laced with loneliness and sadness too, on account of his mother and also because of an ex-girlfriend that Nick still pines over. Enter Phoebe. She's Blake's version of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, only more aloof. The reader doesn't get to know her either, and it's painful to watch Nick's slow infatuation with a girl who could care less about him. As always, Nelson's simple narrative "teen boy" voice is spot-on, and the character's experiences are simple, relatable, unremarkable in the best way. This book has a lot to say about relationships, intimacy, sex, and love, and it says these things in understated ways. This is a great selection for libraries that need easy, thoughtful realistic fiction for boys.

Recommend to: middle and high school boys who are interested in realistic fiction (but who, for instance, might struggle with the reading level and general quirkiness of books by John Green)

This is a great YA novel that I would recommend to readers this year! I like the authors style of writing and the characters that he created for this novel. The parallels between Nick's love interest and his mother were well done and the growth that takes place for him from page 1 through the end is also very relatable and enjoyable to witness.