Review: She Drives Me Crazy

She Drives Me Crazy by Kelly Quindlen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finished on May 7, 2021

Favorite Scene/Quote: "I don't know what this says about me, but your drama is becoming the most entertaining part of my life."

I heard a lot about this book, a lot of good things, and I was really hoping it would live up to the reviews. I found that it did. This is an enjoyable, young adult, fake-dating romance.

    
Scottie Zajac is a redheaded basketball player who recently got dumped by her girlfriend. She’s hurt by this as well as something that happened at a party previously that other students aren’t letting her live down. Her enemy, Irene, was the one who caused the incident at the party and Scottie will never forget that. Irene is a cheerleader, “incredibly beautiful and incredibly mean” according to the summary. After they are forced to carpool together Scottie comes up with an idea that will help both of them. She gets to have revenge on her ex and bring attention to the girls’ basketball team while Irene gets out of a situation with her parents. Irene reluctantly agrees and the two start a fake relationship, what could possibly go wrong?

I need to note that I am a huge fan of the fake-dating trope, even with some of the issues that can arise from them. Irene wasn’t out at school when she agreed to the relationship and I do feel that she might have been kind of forced into accepting. She has to pay her parents back for the repairs to Scottie’s car. In order to do that, she would have to quit her cheerleading team. The problem is she wants to win the athlete award in order to get a scholarship to the college she wants to go to. Scottie offers her the money in exchange for the relationship. The rules they set seem fair for the most part and I quite like how the fake relationship worked even though I feel like we could have seen more of it in the book.

It took me a bit to warm up to these two characters. Irene was because of Scottie. You read this book from Scottie’s point-of-view, so you don’t really know things until she knows them. That means that you see the characters in the light she wants you to see them in. You see Irene as a mean cheerleader who screwed with Scottie at a party. I did like her though. Even with Scottie’s biases it seemed like there was more to her than she was showing people. Scottie was a bit hard to like at times because of her own emotions and lashing out. It made sense because of what she had been through and her emotions being everywhere at times, but it did make her a bit frustrating sometimes.

I liked most of the side characters. You didn’t see a lot of depth or development with most of them, but they’re side characters that’s not always necessary. My biggest issue is Tally. I don’t like her, but I am intrigued. I want to know if she was telling the truth when she was talking to Scottie at the second party or if she was still lying. Also, I really love Scottie's sisters. Thora, especially. I don't know why I like her so much, but I really just loved reading about her and having her in scenes.

This was a really cute book. The characters are flawed and realistic. I love a good fake relationship trope.