Alex, Approximately

Product Information

Here you’ll find anything and everything friendship, bookish and gay, with maybe some writing and film reviews thrown in. In essence it’s a retelling of the classic “You’ve Got Mail”, except it’s set in California and full of surfing and museums - it’s utterly. Narrator Bailey is bold, witty, and humorously self-deprecating, while Porter is the bro with the heart of gold.

Having opened up only a little bit to Alex, an online friend on a film forum, Bailey is hesitant to reveal that she has moved to Alex's city (or any other personal information about herself) until she can track Alex down and make sure he's not a creep. If we’ re meant to be, and he’ s the person I imagine him to be, then things will all work out fine. Even though it was her choice to start this new life in California, Bailey approaches it with a hesitation that is almost comical. Overall I feel like if I had read this before reading any other books by Jenn, I think I might have liked it more. Readers get the novel through Bailey's perspective, but we also get a look at her conversations with Alex/Porter through snippets of their message exchanges.I don’t like smut much in the first place, but when it’s a first-person seventeen-year-old girl talking about her daydreams and fantasies and masturbation habits and what I can only describe as a passion for getting fingered. In this delightfully charming teen spin on You've Got Mail , the one guy Bailey Rydell can't stand is actually the boy of her dreams--she just doesn't know it yet. Gleichzeitig aber sucht sie auch nach Alex, ihrem Chat-Freund, den sie zwar noch nie gesehen hat, mit dem sie aber auch eine enge Freundschaft verbindet. Instead, she decides to try and find him the old-fashioned way, with detective work, when she can fit it in around her new summer job at the local tourist-trap museum.

Now we just have to wait for the dumbest protagonist in world history to figure out what has been increasingly apparent since, like, page 5. I'd definitely recommend this, especially if you enjoy classic Hollywood movies as there's quite a few references! As she futilely attempts to find Alex via chat-transcript clues, readers will figure out his identity long before she does. I was expecting Porter to be a great guy, but I was still surprised by how much I wound up loving him. Alex becomes Bailey's closest friend, an amazing feat considering she dodges relationships (and confrontation) with the ease of a professional.Though I had a hunch about the twist in this book, it didn't make it any less fantastic when it was revealed. Even though it’s obvious and predictable, I don’t like that the book summary reveals the “plot twist” of Porter being Alex. Anyway, what unfolds is a cute story of a girl learning to trust in other people and being more honest with herself.