How to Be the Best Third Wheel | ARC Review

It’s the last year of highschool, and everything has changed . . .

After spending summer vacation in the Philippines with family, Lara returns to school eager to catch up with her close knit group of girlfriends. But within minutes of reuniting with her friends, she learns that not one, not two, but all three of them are now in relationships that blossomed over the summer. And to make matters worse, Lara’s long time frenemy, James, won’t stop bugging her in class and eventually forces her into tutoring him everyday after school.

Surviving high school was never easy to begin with, but with occupied friends, a hectic Filipino family, and her annoying childhood enemy pestering her more than ever, Lara tries to juggle everything, while trying to figure out her own place in the chaos.

I started out really enjoying this quirky novel that, unfortunately, took a nosedive.

Like I mentioned, I enjoyed the humor and quirkiness this book brought. We get most of it through the main character, Lara. She’s against romance and love and has recently become the worst third wheel of all, the seventh wheel in her friend group. Lara was very unpredictable in most of what she did which was part of what made her character so interesting. Sometimes, she was a bit much for me, but that’s part of what made her different and refreshing as a YA main character.

Lara’s friends really sucked. That being said, I very much enjoyed the journey we were able to take with the friend group. Her friends were at the worst at the beginning of the book so Lara has to put her foot down and point it out. We see some great development as Lara realizes what she needs from friends and her friends realize how they need to be treating each other, etc. Some great growth is seen in this friendship and I commend De Villa for that.

James was never very dreamy for me. He felt immature and a bit too teenager-y. I mean, I know he is a teenager, but nobody wants the love interest to act like a real 16/17 year old guy would. I wasn’t impressed by his character which probably led to my lack of interest in the romance of this book.

One of the biggest things for me that really caused me to lower my rating of this book was the ending. It felt unfinished and abrupt. I mean, I might have been able to understand if there had been an epilogue telling me what the characters were up to months/years later, but that wasn’t included. Instead, I was left feeling like I was just told a joke with no punch line.

For the humor and diversity, I recommend it. For everything else, I don’t recommend it.

Rating

To check out my other reviews, click here. Or to check out more books by Loridee De Villa, go to her GoodReads profile.