#but idk it made me feel so nostalgic for that era even though i wasn't even in the fandom and i didn't like. like them in that way

[lovvelorrn]

rediscovered this gem and !!!! okay niall babe!!

[sweetsuenos]

Final thoughts:

It's truly a time capsule of 2009-2010

Gave me nostalgia for the time before full face makeup normalization like I think the mc's head would explode if you told her about "makeup gurus". She wasn't that weird about it, she just kept being like "I'm glad I don't wear makeup bc I keep crying and it'd be very inconvenient"

I think the appeal for first person pov ya stories is that its like reading someones diary. Like it doesn't have much literary value tbh, it's more like just listening to chisme? So still kinda fun.

Its funny how bad it is but its still good? Maybe because its nostalgic for me? But I had to read the whole thing.

Author had good taste though like she referenced a lot of really good music and talked about classic literature often (she was getting an english literature degree so maybe that's why)

A lot of the jokes did NOT age well and some were quite jarring. A lot of jokes that only washed up cringey "offensive" comedians of today would call funny. Most made by the annoying teenage boy type characters but even the mc made a couple dumb ones. Cannot emphasize just how much they pulled me out of the story and immediately reminded me what year the story was uploaded.

Misogyny prevalent. It's funny because it's supposedly not bad that female characters be sexually experienced, the mc has friends with lots of experience and doesn't shame them, they just hate a couple specific girls so they call them sluts ?? The main girl they hated was kinda mean but their insults against her were just misogyny and fake tan comments which like. okay.

Gay jokes that don't get condemned really? In this universe calling people gay, joking that they're gay is okay. Joking that being gay is bad, however, isn't okay. 2010 logic. The main character wasn't free from this, even though one of her bffs is gay, she mentions clothes "being tight but not gay tight" and says the ML has lips that "aren't too big for a boy" like sjsjdkdj??

Also had racist moments. A latina maid that the mc calls cute and supposedly loves but she makes a lot of comments about her 'little accent' which is funny considering the author is french so at times the characters speak in the same broken english the maid speaks by default..so can I even be mad? She says the maid "definitely looks mexican" sksjdhd? And talks about how short she is. All of this is okay though because "she's like family" to the rich ml. There's also a moment where some of her friends randomly ask another friend about her boyfriend (who we just find out in this moment is black) and 'whether the stereotype is true' (to paraphrase), it was weird and uncomfortable. Also whorephobia was abundant. Constant jokes about sex workers and the mc and her bffs called their other bff their pimp. Really 2010 era stuff. I guess people still make those jokes but I feel like a lot less people find them funny. Because they're not.

The MC repeats things too often which I guess was common in stories back then. Like they don't let anything speak for itself. Gotta keep reminding you about every incident that's happened and about every character's personality.

I thought it was interesting when mc narrates an internal monologue (around other characters) she canonically is literally spacing out? For as long as it takes you to read her ramblings? Makes you feel kinda pressured to read it quickly.

"Smirk" is used too much (common for the time) wtf does smirk even mean...evil smile? I don't get it. 2010's writer's obsession with the word is honestly so strange. Also "eye rolling". Too much eye rolling. Go to the doctor.

Mc 'helped' people too much. Idk why characters wanted to randomly confide in her...her advice wasn't all that great? I guess she was nice? She also would think of random inappropriate things during serious situations like girl get a grip??? Really truly main character powers to have everyone randomly obsessed with being your friend and telling you all their secrets.

So much random rawr xD humor. Definitely not funny anymore.

Good banter though I'll give the author that. Especially when it didn't lead to shitty jokes.

Nice slow burn romance. Like. Takes 70 chapters. My favorite kind.

Nice twist at the end that didn't affect me because I already read it multiple times ten years ago but if it was my first read it would have affected me. I think I reccomended this story to people and when they read the twist they were really mad at me.

Did they give up on school at some point? She stopped helping him with math and science? I guess the plot at the end focused on other things but still...that was part of the deal that starts the whole story.

Also why did they only pick out vinyls once? Its the title? She goes to the huge collection and takes a few of them home one time. Also part of the deal that started the whole story. They still talk about them and listen to them often but she only takes some home once. Both things were abandoned so quickly.

The epilogue skips to her being 25 with a kid.. that's so crazy to me. I know lots of people have kids young, but I feel like in a lot of books and movies, 25 is NOT Parent Age. In teen romance, 25 is usually Break Up For a Few Years Age.

These types of stories are obsessed with telling you how """hot""" characters are supposed to be and even as a teenager I wasn't convinced. Maybe because I was gay? But at some point you have to stop mentioning how hot a character is, I truly do not care. Like they just keep repeating "oh [character] is so hot uwu" like okay? Repeating it 50 times is just annoying and unnecessary.

They are obsessed with skinny ppl in these stories, too. Especially ones that don't make an effort to be. Because making an effort is shallow, you should just be naturally conventionally attractive and tiny. The mc even calls herself shallow for straightening her own hair and trying to dress up nicely, debating whether to wet her hair to make it curly again.. Hate the extreme beauty standards of today but also don't miss the any type of beautification feeling foolish era of main characters. Like just be normal bro. Do whatever you want.

But genuinely I think the author could make a good story, hopefully in another format though. It's been 12 years so maybe her writing has evolved. Maybe there's less cringey jokes and misogyny. The story has a 4.3 on goodreads, which is higher than I expected.

And now I can go back to being a person after reading almost nonstop for two days.

There was this like 500 page novel on wattpad that I used to read as a teenager and I wonder if I should go back and read it with adult eyes...