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A review by notesonthepage
P.S. You're the Worst by Chloe Seager
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Becky is a mess. She just doesn’t know why. She has the typical ennui of a late 20-something in a novel whose friends seem to have it more together, and at first it seems like the book is going to be pretty predictable.
After quite a lot of exposition, the main catalyst of the plot (a foreboding tarot reading) sets off a series of events that drive the rest of the book. She gets the Death card and, because she knows nothing about tarot, assumes it’s literal and makes some drastic choices. The book’s title is in reference to the way Becky communicates with the people she loves after the tarot reading—through handwritten letters.
In the aftermath of some Bridget Jones-esque awkwardness, Becky starts to face her mess.
I really didn’t like Becky until close to the end of the book, and I only barely tolerated her friends and her mom until at least halfway through. It was almost as if I felt about Becky and her loved ones the way she did—underwhelmed and a bit let down in the beginning, then frustrated and bitter, then grudgingly respectful.
I blew through this book in a handful of hours, definitely staying up too late when it started to get really intriguing in the middle and I didn’t want to wait to find out what happened next. There are a lot of places I wish the author had spent more time unpacking things (Becky’s relationship with her dad, for example); characters I wish were more fleshed out (such as Becky’s half-sister); and situations that seemed either out of character or slightly too neatly tied up.
Overall though, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants a millennial coming-of-age novel based in London with strong Bridget Jones’s Diary and Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k-Up vibes.
Some elements I especially appreciated about this book:
- non-hetero FMC (bisexual representation)
- character descriptions that don’t talk at all about “beauty” or body size
- casual references to 2025-ish that add humor or detail (without overly dating the book or rendering it irrelevant a few years down the road)
- proper usage of the term gaslighting
- positive representations of healthy adult relationships (eventually)
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!
After quite a lot of exposition, the main catalyst of the plot (a foreboding tarot reading) sets off a series of events that drive the rest of the book. She gets the Death card and, because she knows nothing about tarot, assumes it’s literal and makes some drastic choices. The book’s title is in reference to the way Becky communicates with the people she loves after the tarot reading—through handwritten letters.
In the aftermath of some Bridget Jones-esque awkwardness, Becky starts to face her mess.
I really didn’t like Becky until close to the end of the book, and I only barely tolerated her friends and her mom until at least halfway through. It was almost as if I felt about Becky and her loved ones the way she did—underwhelmed and a bit let down in the beginning, then frustrated and bitter, then grudgingly respectful.
I blew through this book in a handful of hours, definitely staying up too late when it started to get really intriguing in the middle and I didn’t want to wait to find out what happened next. There are a lot of places I wish the author had spent more time unpacking things (Becky’s relationship with her dad, for example); characters I wish were more fleshed out (such as Becky’s half-sister); and situations that seemed either out of character or slightly too neatly tied up.
Overall though, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants a millennial coming-of-age novel based in London with strong Bridget Jones’s Diary and Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k-Up vibes.
Some elements I especially appreciated about this book:
- non-hetero FMC (bisexual representation)
- character descriptions that don’t talk at all about “beauty” or body size
- casual references to 2025-ish that add humor or detail (without overly dating the book or rendering it irrelevant a few years down the road)
- proper usage of the term gaslighting
- positive representations of healthy adult relationships (eventually)
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abandonment, Alcohol
Minor: Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting