Review | PS I Like You by Kasie West

PS I Like You by Kasie West
Published On: July 26, 2016
Published By: Point
Genre: Contemporary
Pages: 330
Format: Hardcover
Source: Gift
Rating: ★★★★

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While spacing out in chemistry class, Lily scribbles some of her favorite song lyrics onto her desk. The next day, she finds that someone has continued the lyrics on the desk and added a message to her. Intrigue! 
Soon, Lily and her anonymous pen pal are exchanging full-on letters—sharing secrets, recommending bands, and opening up to each other. Lily realizes she’s kind of falling for this letter writer. Only, who is he? As Lily attempts to unravel the mystery and juggle school, friends, crushes, and her crazy family, she discovers that matters of the heart can’t always be spelled out…

I absolutely love Kasie West, she's one of my favourite authors, so of course I was super excited to read this book. The previous two books of hers that I read I feel in love with straight away, so I was a little disappointed when I didn't have the same experience with this book. However, as I expected, I couldn't resist Kasie West's great writing and storytelling for long and I soon fell in love with this one as well.

Kasie West never fails to impress me with her awesome, unique and interesting characters. I absolutely loved all of the characters and Lily, in particular, was an great main character. As I have found to be the case with Kasie West, she just had a really great personality. She was quirky and awkward, but very loveable and relatable. I also loved her passion for music, particularly as this wasn't one of the usual 'I listen to old music because I'm too cool' situations that I'm fed up of reading about, it was just an extra layer to her personality.

The central aspect of this story is the letters passed between Lily and her mysterious letter writer during Chemistry class. I really loved the letter aspect of the story. I thought it was a very unique way of watching a relationship evolve, particularly as Lily didn't know who she was writing to for much of the book. It was just a great way of showing their love story. I also loved that we were able to see different sides to both characters through the letters, as they were both sharing sides of them they wouldn't normally be comfortable sharing.

Another important aspect of the book, as far as I'm concerned anyway, is the beautiful friendship between Lily and Isabel. What I loved the most about the two of them was that this wasn't the typical friendship I'm used to reading about. More often than I can cope with, there is a huge argument between the two best friends over the love interest or some aspect of the relationship. I absolutely loved that this wasn't the case in this book. Yes, they had their arguments as all friends do, but the arguments never lasted long as they both seemed to realise that their friendship was more important that some silly argument. This seems more realistic, to me, of a normal teenage friendship.

While I did really enjoy this book, a couple of things did bug me just a little. I think the mystery aspect of the letter writer could have been such a great aspect of the book as the reader was constantly left guessing who it could possible be. Unfortunately, I guessed who the letter writer was really early on, which made much of the middle of the book a little slow. I was just waiting for Lily to catch on and realise just how obvious it was, so spent much of the middle section internally screaming at her to just work it out already. I did like how it was revealed though, and the book definitely picked up once she knew who it was. I also like that we didn't have to wait until near the end of the book for her to work it out.

I also found a lot of this story to be a little bit predictable. I know that is often the case with contemporaries but for some reason I noticed that more in this book. I just seemed to always know what was coming and guessed all the mysteries and plot twists easily. Maybe I just wasn't expecting that from this book as it wasn't the case with the two of Kasie West's books I had previously read, I don't know. It didn't ruin my enjoyment of the book though.

Although I did have a few issues with this book, there is no denying that the best thing about this book is that it is so unbelievably cute. I absolutely loved the Chemistry (ha! Get it?!) between Lily and her letter writer, both through the letters and in real life. I pretty much spent the last 50 pages of the book, and much of the time before that after the reveal, swooning and thinking about how completely adorable it was. This is most definitely a very cute and adorable read.

Overall, this is probably my least favourite of Kasie West's books that I have read so far. That being said, I did really enjoy it and would absolutely recommend it. It is a typical Kasie West book with a fun plot, unique characters and great writing. It's definitely one of the cutest contemporaries I have read in a while.