(No actual dueling—or even arm-twisting—was involved. Don’t worry, this is a dual review, not a duel review. Sorry if you’re disappointed.)
Today I have another dual review of a book from my Make Me Read It Giveaway (as part of the Wrap-Up Round-Up). Danielle Hammelef, a faithful FYFA reader, was again my latest winner, and she chose to make me read You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour and David Levithan. Once I read the book, I sent it along to her.
Once again, Danielle took me up on the option of doing a dual review. This time, she gave me her thoughts first (which I was grateful for, since I had waited way too long to review—I really need to get better about that), and I responded.
Read on to see what we thought of the book…
You Know Me Well by Nina LaCour, David Levithan Published by St. Martin's Griffin on June 7th 2016
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, LGBTQ+
Pages: 248
Source: BEA
My content rating: YA (Nothing more than kissing shown, Sex discussed, Some teen drinking)
My rating:
Who knows you well? Your best friend? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? A stranger you meet on a crazy night? No one, really?
Mark and Kate have sat next to each other for an entire year, but have never spoken. For whatever reason, their paths outside of class have never crossed.
That is, until Kate spots Mark miles away from home, out in the city for a wild, unexpected night. Kate is lost, having just run away from a chance to finally meet the girl she has been in love with from afar.
Mark, meanwhile, is in love with his best friend Ryan, who may or may not feel the same way.
When Kate and Mark meet up, little do they know how important they will become to each other—and how, in a very short time, they will know each other better than any of the people who are supposed to know them more.Told in alternating points of view by Nina LaCour and David Levithan, You Know Me Well is a story about navigating the joys and heartaches of first love, one truth at a time.
What Fed Our Addiction:
DANIELLE SAYS:
- The dual point of view, which flowed so well between chapters that I actually forgot two authors collaborated on this novel.
NICOLE SAYS:
I agree. I was wondering if I would prefer one voice over the other, but I really liked both Mark and Kate, and I was invested in both of their stories. I felt like the story blended well between the two POVs as well.
DANIELLE SAYS:
- The characters popped off the pages and I felt as if I was living this week right alongside them.
NICOLE SAYS:
It’s hard to believe that the story took place over just one week because so much character development went on during that week. Mark and Kate went through some major transformations and emerged at the end of the book as new people in a lot of ways.
DANIELLE SAYS:
- Emotions—I felt the raw emotions of heartbreak, uncertainty, insecurity, the sensations of first kisses.
NICOLE SAYS:
I actually cried during this book, which I was not expecting at all. There were moments that totally broke my heart, and I agree that there were romantic moments that had me swooning. I was just rooting for both Mark and Kate in their respective lives in so many ways. They felt like real people, so I was experiencing their emotions right along with them!
DANIELLE SAYS:
- Setting—It’s so well drawn that I could picture everything.
NICOLE SAYS:
Okay, confession: this is one element of the book that I don’t remember all that well. I mean, if you count Pride Week as part of the setting (which I suppose it is), then that element stood out. And once I looked it up, I remembered that the book took place in San Francisco—I definitely remember the club at the beginning of the book where Kate and Mark first meet. And of course, there’s the high school, but it didn’t stand out to me much more than any other high school setting. Probably someone more familiar with San Francisco would connect to the setting more than I did.
DANIELLE SAYS:
- The friendship between Mark and Kate is what I will remember most about this book. They were so loyal to each other and never hesitated to help each other find the courage to take chances or learn to let go.
NICOLE SAYS:
I agree with you 100%. The friendship between these two is really what the book is all about. I connected to the friendship even more than the romance elements of the book. Mark and Kate forge an instant bond—they just click with each other. This could have seemed improbable, but I think it worked well in this book.
DANIELLE SAYS:
- The struggle people face of letting the world see who you really are.
NICOLE SAYS:
Yes, we saw this theme throughout the book. It plays out in Mark’s story because he’s in love with a guy who doesn’t want to come out. And Kate struggles to let the world truly know her through her art. She also fears failure so much that it makes her almost not want to try—both with her art and in love.
What Left Us Hungry for More:
DANIELLE SAYS:
- Teens easily entering a bar and accessing alcohol.
NICOLE SAYS:
Yeah, I sort of scratched my head at that as well. I’ll confess that I don’t know much about the bar scene in San Francisco, but you kind of have to raise your eyebrows at that.
DANIELLE SAYS:
- College-aged people dating high schoolers.
NICOLE SAYS:
While this certainly happens, it is a little nerve-wracking when I see it in a book like this—especially when Ryan’s only experiences with a “relationship” were with his best friend. As a mom, it’s hard not to get nervous about scenes where a high schooler gets picked up by an older guy, and you sort of have to wonder what these two actually have in common.
DANIELLE SAYS:
- Kate’s love for Violet—I never connected with their feelings and it felt weird and more like infatuation or a crush than true love. This is one of the biggest reasons I couldn’t rate this 5 stars.
NICOLE SAYS:
I have to agree with you here. Kate and Violet seemed to have this romance that bloomed out of hearing about each other. They had never actually met, so it was hard to feel a true bond between them. I thought that their relationship was cute, but I never felt like it was “love.” Still, I understood how Kate had built Violet up in her mind based on her friend’s descriptions of her.
DANIELLE SAYS:
- Violet’s forgiveness seemed uncharacteristic.
NICOLE SAYS:
Again, this sort of goes along with the fact that the relationship between Kate and Violet felt a little unreal. You kind of had to wonder why Violet put up with so much from Kate, a girl she didn’t actually know.
DANIELLE SAYS:
- Ryan’s love interest didn’t make sense to me, especially with that poem Taylor wrote.
NICOLE SAYS:
I’ll admit I actually didn’t care all that much about the relationship between Ryan and Taylor. I was much more concerned with the friendship/relationship between Mark and Ryan. It felt terribly unhealthy to me, and I could not see things from Ryan’s perspective. I think we were supposed to feel, in the end, like Ryan hadn’t done anything wrong, but I didn’t really see it that way. I had a hard time imagining how Mark and Ryan could have continued any sort of real bond after everything that went down between them.
So, in the end, both of us enjoyed this book. Danielle says she would recommend this book if you’re looking for an emotional, self-reflective friendship story with well-developed characters. (And I agree! The friendship between Kate and Mark is definitely the best part of the book.)
NICOLE’S RATING: Fed My Addiction
DANIELLE’S RATING: 4 Stars
***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher via BEA 2016 in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***
That’s it!
Thanks so much for joining me in reading and reviewing this one, Danielle! Dual reviews are so much fun!
Now, make sure you go friend or follow Danielle on Goodreads so you can see what she thinks of lots of other books too. And watch for future dual reviews with Danielle!
Yay! I love this feature you have. It’s so interesting to “talk” about books and get different thoughts so I can consider other points too. This is my equivalent of a YA book club. Thanks, Nicole!
Thanks for doing it with me!!
How did I miss this book when it came out? I love David Levithan and his collaborations. They’re always so wonderful! Thank you for bringing this to my attention, and I’m so happy to see you’ve enjoyed it!
Do You Dog-ear?
I’m glad I could point it out to you!
Very interesting, and I like the way you guys reviewed it!
Thanks, Jazmen!
Fabulous dual review ladies! I love when books are emotional and it’s as though the story reaches right into our hearts. So yay for that! But the issues with the book…..I can definitely see scratching my head at a few of those. As one who has been to plenty of bars in SanFran in my younger years, the bounces scan or look at your ID before you enter the bar. Or at least that’s how it was for every one I went into. And when I moved to Indiana, and then was back home visiting, I was given a hard time for looking young and having an out of state ID quite a few times. But anywho…..I’m so glad you both enjoyed this book! 🙂
Yeah, I’m honestly trying to remember the circumstances of them getting into the bar, but alas, I’ve forgotten. I can definitely see why it stood out to Danielle, though.
While it seems like the romantic relationships fell a little flat on both sides, I really love the sound of the friendship! This one kind of passed me by when it first came out but now I’m totally interested. Thanks for putting this one on my radar!
Sometimes great friendships in books are even better than great romances, right?
I love DL, and was so excited to get this book at BEA. The thing that stood out the most for me was the friendship between Mark and Kate, but my heart ached that both the MCs didn’t get an HEA.
Yeah, I was sad too, though I was actually kind of glad that Mark didn’t end up with his best friend, since some things about that relationship felt sort of toxic to me.
I love this dual review. It would have been even cooler if it had been a duel review but whatever. Its cool that you both pretty much felt the same way about the book, but you both enjoyed it. Fun format!
Yeah, a few swords would have livened things right up!
I agree with you both, I loved the friendship, and I loved the characters, but I didn’t really feel the relationships as much- especially Kate’s. I don’t remember a ton about my feelings about it, but I do remember that! Great review, ladies!
Yeah, it was a little too insta-lovey, but there were other things in the book I enjoyed. I ended up liking it more than I expected to (maybe because I went in with low expectations?)
This is so fun!! I love your idea of Make Me Read It and then they read it too!!! I seriously love it and will definitely enter next time you do it because I want to dual/duel?? read with you!!
Anyway, I thought this story was really fun too!! Friendship goodness, adventure, and Mark was awesome. Kate got on my nerves because she was so afraid of life– always running away from everything the second it got hard over and over again. Annoying. But I LOVE Nina LaCour and everything she does feels so flowy and good that it’s hard for me to really hate on this book.
I do this giveaway every month, and there’s one going on right now HERE, so feel free to enter!
ENTERED!!! I can’t believe I didn’t know this before?? Or maybe I did and forgot. Anyway, ENTERED!! I hope I win so we can read a book together 🙂
I hope you win one of them—it would definitely be fun to review together! (Maybe we can coordinate a dual review sometime even if you don’t win—I think they’re really fun to do!)
I love this dual review! Such a clever and interesting way to show multiple perspectives on a book 😀 I hope you do more of them in the future.
I personally loved this book. It was a 5 star book to me and I related so much to the story and characters. I do agree on some of the things that you guys disliked about it though. I think for me, the reason I was able to look past those things is because this wasn’t at all a romance book. I enjoyed it as a book about young people who make mistakes and bad decisions, even when I didn’t agree with them.
It was so great to read both of your thoughts and I hope you post more reviews in this style!
Thanks so much, Kitty! I definitely plan to post more of these. I’ve been doing a monthly wrap-up round-up giveaway, and the winner always has the option to do a dual review with me. I really enjoy them!
Glad to hear you both enjoyed it even though you weren’t too excited about it 🙂 ! well-written emotional friendship stories are usually a success:)
Sometimes a good friendship can be even better than a good romance. 🙂
I’d also placed this book on the ‘not for me’ list but reading the review and thoughts on this one I’m thinking I might reconsider… but only after I’ve managed to put a significant dent in my own books because I have enough books to read for a year and need to tackle them. I can see there are issues, such as teens entering bars and I always struggle to grasp high school/college dating because I think back on myself at that age and don’t understand but I know it happens. I think this is one I’ll have to think about giving a shot.
Sometimes a book doesn’t seem like it will work for you but it surprises you!