The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You: A Novel

Lily Anderson

May 2016 · Sold by St. Martin's Griffin

About this ebook

Named One of the 16 Best Young Adult Books of 2016 (So Far) by Paste Magazine!

Trixie Watson has two very important goals for senior year: to finally save enough to buy the set of Doctor Who figurines at the local comic books store, and to place third in her class and knock Ben West--and his horrendous new mustache that he spent all summer growing—down to number four.

Trixie will do anything to get her name ranked over Ben's, including give up sleep and comic books—well, maybe not comic books—but definitely sleep. After all, the war of Watson v. West is as vicious as the Doctor v. Daleks and Browncoats v. Alliance combined, and it goes all the way back to the infamous monkey bars incident in the first grade. Over a decade later, it's time to declare a champion once and for all.

The war is Trixie's for the winning, until her best friend starts dating Ben's best friend and the two are unceremoniously dumped together and told to play nice. Finding common ground is odious and tooth-pullingly-painful, but Trixie and Ben's cautious truce slowly transforms into a fandom-based tentative friendship. When Trixie's best friend gets expelled for cheating and Trixie cries foul play, however, they have to choose who to believe and which side they're on—and they might not pick the same side.

Stephanie Perkins meets 10 Things I hate About You in The Only Thing Worse than Me Is You, a fresh, romantic debut from author Lily Anderson inspired by Much Ado About Nothing.

Ratings and reviews

Another #ARCAugust read down. I won an ARC copy from Lily Anderson (thanks!). The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You is a teenage nerd retelling of Much Ado About Nothing. But if you’re looking for the opinion of a Shakespearian fangirl, this is the wrong review. I’ve never read Much Ado and hate Romeo and Juliet. What I can say that if you’re not a Shakespeare fan or involved with the specific fandoms, you can still love this book. The intent of the jokes was obvious to me and that’s just from osmosis and pop culture rather than being properly versed in these subjects. Often they explain it to the non-geek in the crowd to help out. I’m sure Trixie and Ben would want to take my nerd card for not reading comic books, watching Doctor Who and never seeing the original Star Wars trilogy. But as Trixie says, you can pry it from my cold dead hands, lol. It’s very cute and snarky. I loved Trixie and Ben and their friends. The mystery around the cheating was interesting but not the big draw for me though it did add some spice. I admire how Trixie got to the bottom of everything despite other’s disbelief. I honestly wasn’t paying attention to figuring it out myself and was just having fun. I lived for the put-downs and insult matches between Trixie and Ben until they started teasing each other. That was even better. There is one sore spot: the setup and Trixie’s perception changing discovery. Even before the game was revealed at the very end this moment felt off. If they were all supposed to meet up, why didn’t they mention Trixie not showing up and being more circumspect around her hiding spot? They explained away why no one spoke about it the next day, but I still don’t like it. It was fake; It felt fake enough though from Trixie’s POV it was supposed to appear genuine. Besides that, everything is top-notch. It’s a quick, fun, hilarious high school romance romp with geniuses enmeshed in fandoms. If you haven’t read it yet and it sounds like your thing, it’s even better to read it now. People are going back to school to really set the ~mood~.

vjz.

About the author

LILY ANDERSON is an elementary school librarian and Melvil Dewey fangirl with an ever-growing collection of musical theater tattoos and Harry Potter ephemera. She lives in Northern California. THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN ME IS YOU is her debut novel.