A review by jessjessthebest
Wren Martin Ruins It All by Amanda DeWitt

5.0

FIRST BOOK OF THE YEAR!!!
And what a way to kick off!
I loved it. I fucking loved it.
Read this bitch in one sitting as God intended.

This book has everything:
-Star Wars fangirling
-one sided rivalry
-Dead moms
-'You've Got Mail'-ing
-dying brothers
-Chickens!!!!
-secret pining
-messy bitches in robotics club
-mutual pining but our POV character doesn't realize
-Sonic the Hedgehog
-"Wait, I've been into him this whole time? And no one told me????"
-Student council
-a hoodie pocket full of Halloween candy
-An annoying as fuck know-it-all character that is inexplicably irresitable to the perfect golden boy
-and he was even asexual

THAT'S RIGHT Y'ALL! ACE STORY TIME!!!

I love Wren Martin so much. He is utterly intolerable, cares way too much about his principles, and is absolutely begging to get punched in the mouth every second of the day. He's basically a less horny Elliot Schafer so he's just like me for REAL.
I was so compelled by his journey. I loved his commitment to his chickens. I loved his limited perspective so we didn't even get dead mom anything until we were well into the book. I loved his weird tenous relationship with his dad but how he didn't hesitate to call on him when he was sick or cuddle with him on the couch on mom's death anniversary. I loved dramatic grandstanding. I loved his relationship with Ryan and how he never lost sight of her, even when he was caught up in his own shit. I loved how he violated her trust but she was doing the same thing so it just canceled out like PEMDAS and hell yeah bitch that's friendship. I loved his commitment to hating Dances. I loved his hypocrisy and shame surrounding the Buddy app and his refusal to take his wins because they didn't happen the way he wanted. He was just so good and crunchy and I fucking love characters that are so real and messy but TRY and are rewarded in the end with the connection they so deeply crave. It makes me yearn. In the best way.

See? I'm not impossible to please!
Was this book in first person? Yes.
Did we have queer dude with girl best friend? Also yes.
Was that a problem for me? Nope! It did not fall into the ovious traps both attributes set up and was an extremely enjoyable read.

It really hit all the major points:
-Singular POV
-No third act contrived conflict
-Denouement

That's all I ever want! It's so easy to just hit these things!
There was still conflict, there was still a third act conflict, but the conflict made SENSE.

Spoiler

Wren confessed! Leo confessed! They were face to face cards on the table like "I LIKE YOU!" and it wasn't enough! Because Wren had spent so long burning this bridge and never apologizing! Because Leo decided it was better to dance with the devil he didn't know!

They needed to work on it! They needed to take a few more steps toward each other! And it was soo gooooooood!

And listen, did I guess all of the reveals immediately? Of course! Not my first time reading a book, you know? But that's the fun part. The dramatic irony. I'm reading from Wren's POV like "Oh who'm I gonna pick woe is me" and I get to lay in my bed kicking my feel like "Oh you sweet summer child just you wait."

Spoiler

And also, dude, you're super-genius coder classmate proposes getting a fresh new app that started in your town to sponsor an event, and the app immediately responds to him on twitter, and you don't automatically jump to 'my classmate created this app?'
Sorry but that's on you.
He even had the expensive car like be so for real.

This book was one of many reccomended to me by an 'asexual book recs' TickTock and I don't intend to enjoy all of them as much as I enjoyed this one but it does give me hope venturing further into the list.
So that's exciting.