Why did you read this book? It’s made a number of year-end lists, and Beckie liked it when she listened to it as an audiobook. She was up for reading it again as a car book on our trip around Melbourne.

Has Beckie read it? Yes–twice in fact–but no review as yet.

42 word review: Super-sweet first-love story about outcast girl in awful family situation and boy stuck next to her on school bus. How they first get together is incredibly cute, and horrible step-dad is well-done. Very good, ultimately maybe a bit too twee for full marks.

Overall rating: 4 of 5 mix-tapes. (No special points for being a great road-trip book, but was a great road-trip book.)

Notable moments:

• Park glanced over his shoulder. “Can’t you just like a girl who likes you back?”
  “None of them like me back,” Cal said. “I may as well like the one I really want.”
• She couldn’t believe she’d said that. Talk about uncool. Like the opposite of cool. Like, if you looked up cool in the dictionary, there’d be a photo of some cool person there saying, What the eff is wrong with you, Eleanor?