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Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney PDF Download
Details of Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry by Joya Goffney Book
- Book Name: Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry
- Authors: Joya Goffney
- Pages: 384
- Publish Date: February 1, 2022
- Language: English
Book review:
The story follows Quinn, who is a high school senior months away from graduating. Quinn tracks her life in lists: she has lists of memories, lists of her regrets, lists of people she wants to kiss, to-do lists, and of course, a list of all the days she's ugly cried. She keeps all these lists in her journal.
One day, she's working on a group project with her classmates Auden and Carter, who she may have a minor crush on. It isn't until these classmates leave that Quinn realizes her journal of lists is also gone, and in its place is Carter's journal.
Of course, Carter is the first person Quinn interrogates, but Carter doesn't have Quinn's journal, and suddenly Quinn is getting DMs on Instagram. Someone has her journal and is using it to blackmail her.
They want her to complete everything on her to-do list before graduation, or else all of her journal will be released to the public. Quinn obviously thinks it's Carter. Carter insists it isn't him, and to prove his innocence, he decides to team up with her to figure out who does have the journal.
The story basically takes off from there. They go on this journey, friends join along the way, a lot is learned and discovered, and yeah, it's basically a story, it's a YA romance book.
Which let's talk about the romance for a second. The two love interests, Quinn and Carter, are so cute. The relationship was so cute. Um, I really love the development of the relationship. It's not like it's not a slow burn, but it's also not like insta-love, especially because they start off disliking each other at the start of the book. So, um, there was like a pretty good build-up to the relationship.
It was so cute, all the teasing and the tension between them was just so fun to read about. I think they get together like three quarters into the book probably, so it's not like very late, but it's not like really early.
And just the whole, yeah, like I said, the whole build-up to the relationship was so good. Their interactions felt really real, um, and not like something I was reading. Like, I really forgot I was reading for so much of this book. I was just having so much fun reading it.
I loved about the relationship was that Carter especially, he makes the effort to understand where Quinn is coming from and to understand her, and she kind of does the same. The whole time they're really thinking about each other, um, and doing what they can for each other, and it's just so sweet.
And they have all these cute little moments, like they have late-night phone calls. Also, okay, wait, actually, this may be like the teeniest spoiler in terms of the trope that is used.
So if you don't want to know, then like skip ahead 15 seconds. But it's kind of the "it's always been you" trope. Um, because you find out a little later into the book that they actually both have liked each other for a few years now, like since they've known each other, despite acting like they didn't like each other.
I didn't know how much I liked that trope until I read this book. I think the only other book I read with that trope was "The Hating Game" by Sally Thorne, and oh my gosh, it's just, when you find out in the book, I was literally screaming. My little brother looked at me, he was like, "Are you okay?" Like, actually, but like it was just, it was so good.
The whole friend group, besides the love interest, there's two other characters, Olivia and Auden, who are also kind of on this journey with them, of like, they like start off going on these little adventures with them as they're trying to finish their to-do list, and then eventually they find out about the journal and they all try to help Quinn out and try to figure out who has her journal. And their whole friend dynamic was so good, so much banter.
They were so, I loved their friendship because like you could tell how much, like, they were there for each other throughout the book. They all have their own individual struggles, things they're going through and trying to figure out, and regardless of what the other people are going through, they're like there for them the whole time trying to help them figure it out, and it was just.
It was very much like, like a ride or die type of friendship, and like even though they hadn't known each other for so long and like you, like only recently been involved in each other's life, they had so much trust for each other and so much loyalty to each other, and they like all grow together as people and it's so cute, and there's all these funny moments, there's all the sweet moments because there's two separate romances in the friend group too, very, yeah, just a very sweet, very wholesome friend group. I really loved reading about them
Quinn, the main character, and her character growth in this book is just so good. She starts so, as you know, Quinn documents her life in lists, like from all her biggest milestones to all her dirtiest secrets, and so she ties her, like, entire identity and her sense of self to this journal,
Which is why it's such a huge deal to her when the journal goes missing, because, you know, she feels as though this, like, journal gives her, like, her whole sense of self, and because of that she kind of places herself in this box, you know, that she's a certain, uh, she's this certain type of person,
She does these types of things, she can't do these things, and she knows this because of her list, and so she's very afraid to step out of that box, and she feels like she can't, she feels like she can't mess up because she has all these expectations for her that either from her parents or her friends or her classmates or even herself that she feels very obligated to meet. She doesn't leave very much room for herself to actually be herself and express how she is and to try new things, and you know, to make mistakes and make failures, and like so as she goes on this journey while she's trying to complete her to-do list and also figure out what, like, who has her journal and going through all these things with her friends who are also helping her
So one thing the book does talk about is Alzheimer's disease, um, so Quinn does have a grandma who's diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and she had a really close relationship with her grandmother, and so this realization is really devastating to her, and so throughout the story you see her as she's like trying to, she's really sad about this obviously and she's trying to come to terms with it and her whole story,
Her like whole journey through this is that she is scared to go visit her grandma in the nursing home where she's being taken care of, um, and scared she like won't see her as the way she was when she was little.
This part of the story was, it like hit a little closer to home, um, it felt much more real for me personally as someone who has a family member who has Alzheimer's disease and I think a lot of the things Quinn was feeling I felt myself and I could relate to them, you know, and also not only the effect it has on you and the effect it has on that family member but then all of your family as they're dealing with this and like the struggles that you all go through and how you have to watch it hurt the people that you care about.
And so I just, I was like this, this part of the story, uh, I could really, like, it really, like, I could really feel it in my heart and then, yeah, but like this, this part of the storyline really made me cry too, it was, yeah, I think it was just handled really well.
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