Customer Reviews

You, Maybe: The Profound Asymmetry of Love in High School

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Love is a brat," Josie's new crush, Carson, tells her. "Whatever you don't love, loves you. But whatever you love kicks your butt." Carson Gold isn't just any crush. He's a hot senior who had a very public breakup with his longtime girlfriend, Emelina. He then ran through several girls who Josie scorns as she sees them begging him to take them back at the parties she and her friends crash on weekends.

Josie doesn't believe in love. She's happy hanging out with her two best gal pals, Zandra and Tru, and her longtime best friend Michael. She even enjoys running little kids' birthday parties, doing magic tricks dressed as Tallulah the Clown. Her life is full and uncomplicated. It is true that she and Michael make out frequently, but they're still just friends, she believes.

Things get complicated though when Carson starts noticing Josie. She discovers that even she is not immune to his many charms. Things start out with secret makeout sessions during their free seventh periods. She continues to write songs and make out with Michael, which begins to feel weird.

Carson doesn't call her and they don't really go out. But then he starts getting serious, asking her to be his girlfriend and to stop being with Michael. After some convincing, Josie agrees. She scraps plans for Michael's birthday and starts hanging out with Carson and his popular crowd, which includes his ex-girlfriend.

Soon Josie is changing how she dresses, how she acts, and canceling birthday party gigs to go spend a weekend with Carson at his ex's cabin. Josie tells him about how much she loves him and is even thinking about having sex with Carson, who is pushing her farther than she has ever gone during makeout sessions.

It is during this cabin adventure that Josie is forced to see that these changes are not good and that Carson has not changed from the fickle person she thought she knew. A near tragedy in her family brings Michael back, and she sees him for the valuable friend he is as well.

YOU, MAYBE is for everyone who has had their head turned by the wrong guy.

--- Reviewed by Amy Alessio

I absolutely loved this book. It is deep but also funny and so intense. It is about Josie, who has always been strong and smart and comfortable with herself, and how she falls in love with gorgeous, charming Carson -- and throws away everything important to her, trying to keep him. ACK!!!! I know exactly how she feels! Rachel Vail absolutely captures the feelings (fantastic AND devastating) you have when the most important thing in your life is this one special relationship, and even when you KNOW you shouldn't do stuff (call him constantly, IM him, ask him what's wrong, cry in front of him) you just can't help it, you are nuts and obsessed and lost all track of who you used to be. I love Josie. I love this book. It just came out yesterday and my mom got it for me and I read it last night without looking up from it once! I couldn't stop! I just had to find out what happened... and now I can't wait to read it again.

This was a fun book! I really liked it. It was funny and you kind of know what's going to happen, but still you feel excited and sad and everything that the character is feeling. I really liked this book and would recommend it to people who enjoy reading teen fiction.

Waste of time book. The ending was AWFUL like someone rushed her to finish it, what about Michael? He actually loved her and she and the author literally just wrote him off like he never meant a thing. Waste of time and money to read this stupid book, would NOT recommend!

A pretty good book that I mostly enjoyed until the ending. It completely ruined it for me. I wanted to shake the author and ask what the heck she was thinking! If she was trying to display the effects of teenage dating, then she did so terribly. What a waste of paper.

I bought the book for my daughter and she could not put it down. i would recommend this book to others. This is the second book she has read by this author and wants them all.

At first, when you begin to read this book, it reminds you a lot like Twilight. Unrealistic, mismatched romance. Read on, and you will find i's not. In fact, it's quite the opposite. And that is what makes it perfect--it is the ideal antidote for this Edward-obsessed generation of developing young women..
At the beginning, Josie is an independent, philosophical, free sophomore in high school. At the end, she is a boring, trying-to fit in, tight pink sweater kind of girl. How did this happen?
Carson -- the ideal senior, right? This story is amazing because it really portrays how much young girls fantasize in high school. She fantasizes that Carson loves her because they have the same spirit in ways, that he is vulnerable and tough at the same time, and that he loves her unconditionally. In truth, it's all a facade so he doesn't look like a loser while his ex (that he hasn't gotten over--and Josie knows this as a fact before she falls before Carson at the beginning on the book) is going out wih a sophomore in College.
Anyway, in the end, all of Josie's fantasies fall apart. But she keeps rebuilding them in the hopes that she won't look like the fool she abhores at the beginning of the book. (At the beginning, Carson has just broken up with another girl who screams and cries that she loves him in the middle of a party).
But she finds herself in a tense scene acting exactly as the girl she pitied so much.
In the end, she regains her poise and her cleverness and her common sense in a very (cute?) (clever?) way. Which is a much, much better ending than what I was expecting...I was expecing Josie to get together with her old love, Michael.
I don't know what this negative feedback is about. I think, like all books, you should hear it out to the end and make the judgement. Yes, you may be turned off at the beginning--this is a cheesy, drooly book but at the end you will be proved most pleasantly wrong.
I LOVE this book because it is precisely how a Twilight would end up in real life--that book is fantasy on all levels.
The message is "You will lose yourself if you give in to your fantasies--if it's too good to be true, it probably is."
Read this book--it deglamorizes the silly and immature legacy the Twilight series has impressed on teenagers.

I bought this book after viewing an online recommendation from a teen author I adore, feeling sure, after reading her praise, that it would be great. However, I found it hard to keep reading till I finished and felt that the main character was very unlikable, which is a huge mistake on the author's part when it comes to a teens' book. I thought she was neurotic, slutty, indecisive, and dumber than usual when it comes to the opposite sex. I also thought that the character of Carson was oddly inconsistent and very unrealistic, and that some mistakes and inaccuracies made in this novel were crucial. I know that, apparently, this book is immensely popular among reviewers, but I just don't see why.
I found this book to be boring and poorly written. Vail has highly disappointed me with this book, because it seems that it was not planned properly and the writing was terrible. The best way I can describe the writing in this book is that was far too rushed and quick, feeling like Vail just yearned to get on with it, and it was not fun to read. I definitely expected more from her.
Though, I won't say the book didn't have some good touches. I found myself identifying with this book in a way that very nearly pinched me, for example, when she had to leave embarassingly and had to get her dad to come pick her up, and the awkward or outright unpleasent situations between her and other characters. This sure is an example of love in high school - just a bad and poorly written one.
Finally, I'd like to say that if you really want to read this book, borrow it from the library for free - I sure didn't find myself wanting to reread it, and it turned out to be quite a waste of money.

Okay, I would like to talk to the author and ask her what the deal was? When I first started reading this book, I couldn't put it down. VERY interesting! Loved the story! Could relate. Loved Josie and the way she could be cool when talking to guys. Loved the use of "You, maybe". That was PRICELESS!! I could never do that! That was so funny. I wish I had the courage to be like that in high school. (I'm 26 now.) Anyway, I really loved reading the book, but I HAVE to say, it's really bugging me. It ended really bad. The book just needs 1 more chapter. I was sooo hoping for Josie to end up with Michael and it would have a wonderful happy ending. I can't believe it ended the way it did. There needs to be a sequal. But then again, it really only needs one more chapter I think, not a whole other book. I'd like to know what the author was thinking in not having a good ending. Real life is too dissapointing as it is, books need to have wonderful happy endings.

YOU, MAYBE is a great book about high school romance. This book really captures how romance in high school can be confusing and heartbreaking, but can also be fun. This book is a page-turner; it keeps you wondering what could possibly happen next.

Josie is a fifteen-year-old girl who is very independent and has never wanted to be anybody's girlfriend. She believes that when you become a couple, you yourself are only half of something and not whole. She's just a regular kid who never understood why they say that these are the best years of your life.

Josie is living her regular life; going to school, trying to make some extra money, hanging out with her friends, and everything else a regular teenager would do. Josie loved hanging out with her best guy friend, Michael. Everything was fine between Josie and her friends. But what happens when she starts to think that she might be falling in love with Carson, a BP (beautiful person), the kind of person she had always hated? What happens when Carson starts to notice her? Carson had previously had a hard time when his first love, Emelina, got accepted to college early and fell in love with an older college boy. Will Carson learn to love Josie and give up on Emelina? And what will happen when a tragic event happens? Will Carson love Josie or break her heart?

To answer all these questions, read this great book.

Reviewed by: Cayla Carhart