Love, Life, and the List by Kasie West - Review

Book Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old

Abby Turner's summer isn't going the way she'd planned. She has a not-so-secret but definitely unrequited crush on her best friend, Cooper. She hasn't been able to manage her mother's growing issues with anxiety. And now

4.5/5 stars. It’s been a while since I’ve read a Kasie West book, or a contemporary romance in general. It was nice to get back to a wholesome, quick read with great banter and a fun plot. I don’t really have many negatives to say about this book. I thought I was going to give it five stars, because it held my attention very well the whole time, but then there was a bit more content than I was expecting for Kasie West, a normally very clean author. There were also some small parts about the plot toward the end that I wasn’t the biggest fan of.

The concept of this book was very cute. I loved seeing Abby trying new things and completing her list. Even I was mentally crossing things off the list along with her, as she had new experiences. Then, it was fun to see her coming up with new painting ideas based on these experiences. Abby was a great character. She was very sarcastic but never mean, and I rooted for her from the start. I enjoyed her growth.

Now I’ll move on to the romance. Abby and Cooper had great banter. I always love the best-friends-to-lovers trope, and that definitely came through in this book. However, at times I did think the way they acted with each other and how physical they got was a bit too much for them only being friends at the start. But that was minor.

The plot was very engaging. Once I got into it, I flew through the book. I also wasn’t expecting something that happened about 80% of the way through. I genuinely thought it would all go as planned, which would’ve still been fine, but it was a nice surprise when things changed.

The only complaint I have that isn’t content-related is with a character’s plan to get the main couple together. It involved her kissing him even though she was pretty sure he didn’t reciprocate her feelings. And there was the idea of how the couple “should’ve been together a year ago,” so that justified them being ignoring the girl Cooper had been dating. None of that mattered in the end, anyway, but the concepts still bugged me.

Content:

Language: s*xier, p*ssed

Sexual Content: a lot of thinking about physical closeness and touching, a mention of making out, kissing (with tongue, which was more inappropriate than I’ve ever read in a Kasie West book, which caught me off guard)

Drugs/Alcohol: None

Violence/Gore: None