Here we are again, folks. My name is Abbey and I am here to
tell you about a book I hate. Also known as The Bad.
Book title: It Had to Be You (No, it didn’t. Why did it have
to be you that I chose to read? And now reread for the purpose of writing this
blog? Why did you ever have to exist in the first place, you terrible, terrible
book?)
Author: Stephanie Doyon (She apparently has written other YA
books, but thankfully no other love stories which I might be forced to read and,
for that reason, I still believe in God.)
“I’m in love with a guy I’ve never seen. I’ve fallen for his
heart, his soul, and his mind. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt if he had a gorgeous
smile…”
What the cover of this book doesn’t foreshadow is how awful
it will be and for that I can never forgive it. I have chosen to give you two
covers here. I had never seen the second, slightly greenish one, but it came up
while I was Googling and I thought it was so truly awful I needed to include it.
They usually use cover photos that look slightly like the people described in
the book, but these two girls are completely different. I’m pretty sure the
first pale girl is closer to what the book describes, whereas the girl in the
second one is possibly…Mexican-Martian? And the guy is a...hologram?
Synopsis per the back of the book
Rebecca Lowe’s in
love. The only problem is she’s never even met the guy. Or has she? After weeks
of exchanging love letters by computer, Rebecca’s finally going to have a
face-to-face date with her cybercrush at the homecoming dance. But when she
sees Jordan West in the secret meeting spot, Rebecca doesn’t know what to do.
No one at school bugs
Rebecca more than Jordan and his save-the-world attitude, yet no one seems to
understand her the way he does on-line. Can this Mr. Wrong turn out to be
oh-so-right?
Okay, I know this sounds really good from what you’ve heard
so far, and you really don’t understand why I dislike it so much. This book pulled
the wool over my eyes, too, I’ll admit. But do not fear, reader. I will prove
to you in due course that my hatred is justified.
As you can tell from the summary, this book is basically a
YA version of “You’ve Got Mail.” Except the banter isn’t witty, you will not
give one solitary shit about the characters, and the fashion is really
embarrassing. At least Meg Ryan was just blandly dowdy and not blatantly cringe
worthy.
But enough of my complaining. Allow me to show you.
The book opens with Rebecca Lowe and her BFF Leslie on the
first day of school, talking about what kind of boy they want to nab for the
school year. Leslie wants a hot senior by the end of the year, whereas Rebecca
is just hoping for a date to Homecoming. Apparently, her date last year wore a
too small purple tux, and Rebecca was extremely embarrassed in her “brand new,
stack-heeled penny loafers.”
Speaking of which, the author really loves describing things.
In these love stories, sometimes they’ll just pick one fashion accessory to
include per scene. But this author has described her loafers, her “cream
colored skirt with lavender flowers” and her “brand new five subject notebook”
all within a space of about three pages. Thank you for the imagery, Stephanie.
I’m so glad I know just how many things upon Rebecca’s person are brand new.
Anyway, Rebecca’s computer teacher announces that the high
school has finally set up an email system at the school and each student will
have their own account, which they can only use to email other school accounts
and post bulletin board messages. He passes out instructions for setting up the
accounts and lets them loose.
Leslie is quickly revealed to be the skankier, more
rebellious of the pair and immediately sets to finding some hot seniors to
email. Like an 80 year-old discovering her first PC, Rebecca wonders why she
would want to email anyone when she could write them a note or see them face to
face. She thinks Leslie is being “insane” and “out of control” when she posts an
anonymous personal ad to the bulletin board. “This isn’t a pickup joint!” she
sniffs, still in her 80 year old trance.
Leslie begins to write Rebecca one, using her codename,
Lavender.
Beautiful Capricon, 5’1”
with long light brown hair and chocolate brown eyes, loves sunsets, playing
saxophone, travel.
Leslie adds:
Seeks fabulous date
for homecoming dance. Even though it’s still six weeks away, it’s never too
early for romance!
Still pretending to be an 80 year old, Rebecca protests that
the last part seems too desperate, because posting a personal ad to the school
message boards wasn’t desperate to begin with.
Sidebar, I just noticed that her personal ad says she’s 5’1”.
I mean, I’m not a lot taller than her, but for a junior in high school that
seems very short. Is she even big
enough to hold her saxophone?
After school, our 80 year-old dwarf heads to Java Joe’s to
practice with her jazz band, Synergy. Yes, her band is named Synergy. I’ll just
let that sink in for a moment.
Anyway, it turns out that their tech guy has run off to
Colorado with a girl so he has been replaced with a new guy, Jordan West.
Rebecca knows him because their fathers both teach at the nearby college. He is
apparently an “annoying activist type” who seems to enjoy telling everyone the
evils of everything they enjoy.
Rebecca and Jordan get off on the wrong foot, because
Rebecca is still being a geriatric stick in the mud.
Her bandmates are playing
cards prior to her arrival, and when Jordan is introduced to them he joins the game
and has the audacity to call her “Becky.” She snorts and stomps at them like a
bull in heat for a while about not getting to the rehearsal, even though they
have no upcoming performances, before slamming her case shut and storming out.
Spoiler alert: Rebecca loves storming out in this book.
The next day, Leslie informs Rebecca that her email scheme
has already gotten her five dates and she needs Rebecca to help her scope out
whether these guys are cool or not. If they show up and she’s not into them,
she plans to stand them up. Rebecca is horrified, but goes along with it
anyway. Following this discussion is an unfortunate encounter with Jordan where
he tells her she’s a murderer for eating chicken and that her band hates her for
being so uptight. She again snarls at him and storms out. Leslie tells her
Jordan was just flirting.
It’s hard to tell which character you’re supposed to like at
this point. Jordan is a tool, but he’s harmless. Meanwhile, Rebecca is a
curmudgeonly elf who keeps yelling at everyone. Do I really care if either of
these characters has a happy ending so far? Meh.
I wasn’t going to go into detail about Leslie meeting her
dates, but I’d like to mention their screennames. Leslie chooses to stand up
Spike, Valentino, Rocker, and Teddy Bear before finally approaching Dr.
Gorgeous. I really can’t wait for the nineties to be over so these people can
learn how to use the internet. Meanwhile, Rebecca attempts to ask a hot foreign
exchange student to Homecoming, but chickens out.
This book is a whirlwind of ACTION.
Jordan tries to be nice to Rebecca by arranging a serious
rehearsal with the band, but when he approaches her she flips out at him for
making plans without consulting her. How DARE he try to do something nice!
Usurpers! No one can take down the Synergy dictatorship!
And now, you guessed it…she storms away.
At rehearsal, the other band members are selfish enough to
suggest they might want to quit the band if Rebecca can’t get them a gig in the
near future. Rebecca can’t understand why her dictatorship should include
actually finding shows for her group to play. Jordan has a few ideas and offers
to help, but Rebecca is not thrilled that he is trying to actually be helpful
and save her band because, though she is a grumpy elderly woman, she is still
enough of a teenager to be jealous that she’s not her band’s fav anymore.
As Rebecca sort of tries to find a gig, her paranoia
continues to escalate. She is furious that Jordan didn’t mention talking to
Java Joe about playing a gig at his café, despite her having told him she didn’t
want his help or to associate with him in any way. She becomes increasingly
convinced that the band never wanted to play gigs until Jordan came along, that
the one night she stormed out on them they conspired against her at the pizza
parlor, and that if she doesn’t find them a gig the band will reform without
her under the management of Jordan West, the VILLAIN!
Rebecca is insane. I just can’t get over it, y’all.
Meanwhile, Rebecca’s personal ad hasn’t gotten much
attention, so Leslie writes her a new one that “sizzles.” The messages soon
come pouring in. Rebecca decides to give a chance to a “Carlos” who writes her
this eloquent missive:
Hi, Lavender!
How are you today?
This is my first time trying E-mail. I saw your message posted on the bulletin
board, so I thought I’d try it out. This is kind of weird, but it’s fun too.
Please let me know if you get this message, and you want to be E-mail pals,
that would be great.
Have a nice day,
Carlos
Rebecca replies:
Hi, Carlos!
Thanks for your
message. I hope your day is going well. You’re write about how weird this
E-mail thing is!
Take care,
Lavender
Wow, sparks are truly flying.
Carlos’ next message about the smell of a lavender field in
Switzerland is poetic and definitely heterosexual. Lavender sends back a really
boring email, but things are totally getting serious anyway, despite her having
the personality of a tennis shoe.
Rebecca receives a note from Jordan suggesting some places
she might want to contact about gigs since she won’t let him help, but she
tosses it in the trash, raging about how INSENSITIVE this jerk is! He’s totally
making fun of her and wants to see her fail before he overtakes her throne! She
hides from him in the boy’s bathroom and cries over what a terrible person he
is for giving her a list of made up venues.
Rebecca begins to suspect that Carlos is, in reality, the
foreign exchange student, Antonio and proceeds to fantasize daily about him.
Imagining they share some romantic secret, she even makes some embarrassing
comments about lavender and sunsets to him that tries to pretend he understands.
At rehearsal, Jordan reveals that the venues he gave her
were very real and he was just trying to help. Rebecca is very embarrassed as
she realizes what an enormous idiot she is. Jordan announces that he talked to
the principal about opening for the headlining band at the homecoming dance and
Rebecca is almost excited enough to forget how insecure she is. Jordan finally
calls her out for being a paranoid maniac and I almost have a character to care
about now. Actually, enjoy this little dialogue for yourself.
“You are the most
paranoid person I’ve ever met,” he said. “No, I take that back. You’re the most
paranoid.”
“Call me whatever you
want. The fact remains that you’ve gained the upper hand,” I snapped, poking a
finger at his chest to emphasize my point.
Jordan held my finger
and moved it out of the way. “Listen to yourself. You’re a control freak. Get a
grip.”
My jaw tensed. “You
can’t even defend yourself – All you can do is call me names,” I seethed. “’Get
a grip’ -- How articulate! Mr. Sensitivity strikes again.”
“And Ms. Touchy gets
bent out of shape again,” Jordan countered.
“As if I don’t have a
reason to be.” I stood up, my face only inches away from his. I glared at him. “Just
do me a favor, Jordan – stay out of my way.”
“My pleasure,” he
said, staring back at me. “Consider it done.”
It doesn’t explicitly say so, but I think we all know how
Rebecca exits this scene…stormily.
At this point in my blog, I was wondering if the author was really
trying to copy the snappy arguments of Nora Ephron, so I decided to compare the
release dates of this book and “You’ve Got Mail.” Turns out this book came out
two years earlier, amazingly enough. This argument had me pulling out the
popcorn! I could almost heart Tom Hanks calling Meg Ryan “Ms. Touchy.” Who ever
thought up such a great quip by themselves?!
In the world of E-mail romance, Leslie has met a romantic
British guy named Edward in a chat room and introduces Rebecca to the idea of a
cyber date. She tells her all about how she and Edward walked along the Thames
and gazed at Big Ben in the moonlight. She suggests Rebecca do the same with
Carlos. On a Saturday night, Rebecca uses the computer at Leslie’s to go on a
date with Carlos.
At band practice, when Jordan makes a slight suggestion to
Rebecca about her saxophone playing, she challenges him to prove how good he
is, though he warns her that it’s a bad idea. She insists, convinced he’ll be
terrible (even though she knows his dad is a music professor...................).
But he proves himself to be a prodigal saxophonist, embarrassing her in front
of the whole band and further proving her paranoia. Even though he sincerely
tried to prevent her from humiliating herself, she is still convinced he’s the
worst person alive.
I really don’t have the energy to type out this whole cyber
date, but my desire to show you how terrible it is outweighs my laziness. I’m
rereading it and laughing so hard since it was clearly written by a twelve year
old. I’ll just abbreviate the names.
Carlos: Are you afraid
of heights?
Lavender: No. What did
you have in mind?
C: I thought we could
go to the top of a rocky bluff and dance under the stars.
L: It sounds great! How
should I dress? Formal or casual?
C: Since I’m wearing a
tux, I hope you’re in the mood to dress up.
L: It just so happens
that I’m wearing a black velvet evening gown with dangling rhinestone earrings.
(Glamour!Glamour!Glamour!)
C: Good, then you won’t
be underdressed.
L: There’s only one
problem though – How am I supposed to climb to the top of a rocky bluff in
four-inch heels? (Something she’ll obviously need, being the size of garden
gnome.)
C: Good question. I
don’t want to ruin my tux, either, because it’s a rental. I guess we’ll just
have to take my helicopter to the top…Okay, it’s all set. C’mon, hop in. (I
love how, even in his fantasy, his tux is a rental. He can afford a helicopter
but not his own tux. It’s the small realistic touches that really get you into
the spirit of imagination, I guess.)
By the end of the date, Lavender finally works up the
courage to ask Carlos to the homecoming dance. They decide to not meet until
that night for full romantic value.
At school the next day, Rebecca humiliates herself yet
again. She strolls up to Antonio, who is flirting with some other skank, and
babbles at him about tuxes, rocky bluffs, and their date in a few weeks. He
looks completely confused, but nods and agrees to get the crazy lady to leave
him alone. Not one to be ignored however, Rebecca makes her second move a few
days later. While Antonio is on a phone call, she walks up to him, gets as
creepily close as she possibly can, and whispers in his ear, “I’ll see you
tomorrow night.” She walks away seductively before he can tell her about the
restraining order he has filed against her.
At the dance, Jordan and Rebecca are surprisingly civil to
each other, chatting away about the dates they’re both waiting for who seem to
never show up. It’s not enough of a coincidence for them to take notice.
Finally, Jordan mentions that his date is named Lavender. Rebecca, the elderly
paranoid goblin, lashes out at him for intentionally pranking into her thinking
she was talking to Antonio the whole time just for the sake of laughing at her.
She screams at him that she hates him and – can you guess what happens next? An
exit that involves storming and awayness.
Jordan writes her a very sweet email telling her that he had
a great time with her and wishes they could talk about what happened, but
Rebecca can see RIGHT THROUGH HIM!!! Somehow, she manages to get a date with
Antonio that day. Maybe he figured he’d safer if he knew her location at all
times. He’ll probably have someone tail them, just to be safe.
But it turns out that Antonio had a real hard-on for her
after she whispered in his ear creepily a few days before. On their date, he
tries to park and bone with her, but she quickly intercepts him with her
saxophone and makes him drive her home.
Also, it turns out that Leslie’s romantic Brit was actually
a group of college guys who stole their friend's email and pranked her. Something similar
happened to me once, but I was twelve, so I don’t have a ton of sympathy for
her.
On a band bonding trip, Jordan finally does something smart
and tells Rebecca he doesn’t think she can make it up to him after going out
with Antonio just to spite him. He leaves her rejected and alone, just as she
should be for being a huge bitch.
Unfortunately, at their gig that weekend, Jordan finally
admits that he misses her and decides they can be together, even though it’s a
terrible idea. Even their final reconciliatory conversation inspires very
little hope for their future together.
Jordan tenderly kissed
the top of my head. “No more fighting, okay?”
“Okay,” I said
contentedly. “Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
“When would it be
absolutely necessary?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said
with a mischievous smile. “Say if one us accidentally locks the keys in the
car.”
“That would be a good
reason,” Jordan teased. “Or an even better reason would be if one us throws
away a list of jazz clubs that the other one worked so hard to get.”
I shook my head. “That’s
not a good reason.”
Then they kiss and it’s all great, even though Rebecca has
basically just promised to never admit she’s wrong and only start fights about
things that are his fault. Very healthy relationship.
I just don’t even know how to sum this book up. It would
almost be charmingly outdated if the characters weren’t so terrible. I could
say, “Aw, how cute, she’s learning to use the internet” if the main character
wasn’t a completely insane, vile shrew who wrote emails as eloquently as a
newborn koala bear.
Rebecca didn’t deserve any of the things she got in this
book. What she deserved was for her band to fall part, Jordan to meet some
other nice hippie who cared as much about the fur industry as him, for her BFF
to get murdered by Edward who turned out to be the Craigslist killer, and for
Antonio to take her back to his home country and sell her into slavery.
Too harsh? Maybe, but I feel that’s only fair repayment for
having had to read this book twice.
F MINUS!
