If I'm Being Honest by Emily Wibberley

DNF @ 10%

So, 10 Things I Hate About You is like the holy grail of Taming of the Shrew retellings. It's one of my favorite movies and it was my gateway drug into the deluge of "teen movies" of the 90s and early 2000s (side note, #bringbackteenmovies2020). When I saw I'M THINKING OF BEING HONEST on sale last month for the low, low price of $1.99, spendy me was like YAAAAASS.

Frugal me is now giving spendy me the death glare and muttering, "Oh my God, you are literally the reason why we cannot have nice things." Because this book was... ummmm... not great.

emma wrote a very concise review of how I felt about this book. I didn't click with any of the characters and Cameron is less a shrew and more of a jerk. One of the things I loved about Kat Stratford in 10TIHAY is that she was so relatable to any woman who was tired of dealing with jerk guys. She was a feminist who supported underground women's bands, and sought to be a disruptor against the toxic masculinity that served as the de facto status quo.

10TIHAY has a great cast with strong female characters and likable love interests who let their love interests stand up for themselves while also offering support. The supporting characters are also great, and everyone has really interesting personalities. By contrast, Cameron's friends are walking stereotypes who basically feed into the stereotypes of snobby L.A. people. I didn't really like any of them, and didn't think that Cameron had much chemistry with her love interest.

I'm trying to Marie Kondo my Kindle, so since this wasn't really wowing me at 10%, I figured it was probably a lost cause. I'm sad because I'm out $1.99 with no entertainment to show for it, but at least it was cheap and I tried, and I now know that this author is probably not for me.

2 out of 5 stars