'Love and Other Things I'm Bad At'— Book Review

If you’ve been reading my other reviews, I bet you can guess that I like the young adult romance novels, and this may come as a surprise, but this IS another one. Catherine Clark has written many young adult novels and I have read most of them, so whenever I hear she has a new one being published, I quickly log onto Amazon and buy it. Which may be why I like this one since this novel is actually a compilation. There are two books in one! What could be better?

The first thing that drew me to this novel (since it was my first Clark read) was the title. Who hasn’t been bad at love at one point or another, especially as a young adult who is just beginning to navigate the world around them? But what other things could there be a reference to? Not only did Clark draw me in because of the love, but also because of the mystery. She didn’t give everything away by naming the novel “Lonely, Vegan, Collegiate Whose Bad at Love," but instead caused me to wonder about what else could someone be as bad at as love. And I’ll give fair warning here; SPOILER ALERT! These two stories are sold together because they fit together, so I can’t explain one without explaining the other.

Well to start, this novel begins in Wisconsin as the main character is going to be attending school in the middle of nowhere. She’s far away from her boyfriend and (big surprise) they break up because the long distance isn’t working. The first novel goes flying by and ultimately, she gets a new boyfriend at the end. Then in the second book, she transfers schools to…the same school as her ex-boyfriend! Her current boyfriend isn’t happy they get in a fight and (another big surprise) they break up. She falls back in love with her original boyfriend and they start dating again.

A whole bunch of other things happens in between and some of it is actually funny and interesting. For instance, in the land of cheese, our main character is a vegan! She has nothing to eat while she’s at college unless she goes three towns over to the organic market and buys food. This causes some humorous and seemingly ridiculous scenes for our main character, but they keep readers interested, so I guess they work out.

The language in the novel is very contemporary. There were instances when I almost thought I was sitting in the classrooms of my college having these actual conversations. It seemed exactly like being back in school and just talking to my friends about my weekend or the hardships of a certain class. Catherine Clark has once again outdone herself with her novel. I can’t wait for more of her novels to be released.

And for those of you who have yet to be pulled into the vortex that is Catherine Clark, you don’t have to wait. Clark has written numerous novels, including some with familiar faces, such as My So Called Life and My So Called Life Goes On based on the characters from the TV show and Gilmore Girls books based on the characters from the beloved TV show as well. However, if reading about previously seen characters isn’t your style, Clark has also written many original works that are geared towards young adults falling in love. Her original works are great for vacation or beach reads because many are based on holiday romance. For example, Maine Squeeze, Rocky Road Trip, and So Inn Love are all about falling in love during a trip away.