“Lee Goes to High School”

17 hours of no plot and no story about an unlikable teen girl being anxious around people and miserable to them.

I have to admit I’m a little baffled as to why this book received any acclaim. The main character is at times highly identifiable in her social anxiety but is most often a shallow, self-obsessed, severely unlikable girl with no arc, no story, and no plot other than literally “Lee goes to high school.” Heap on top of that how desperate she is for a boy to like her and how she lets herself be used by him and she becomes as pathetic as she is irritating without ever getting beyond it or learning from it at the book’s abrupt conclusion.
How is the book 17 hours long with no plot? It’s unending social observation and commentary of her classmates. Some people really enjoy that, but for me the author could have crystallized the jewels from this down to a short story and created something special. It’s a book about a girl who’s on the periphery of everything, and that could have been really clever, but it misses the mark (in my opinion) mostly by being so long about someone so miserable all while so little actually happens.
The realism is the one area where this book really shines so if smeared snot and bowel movement metaphors are your thing, you will probably genuinely appreciate this book. The author creates a very real environment and nothing is taboo. She nails certain aspects of social anxiety, but not everyone who struggles with that is a rude and miserable wretch. The writing itself is solid but inconsistent and unexceptional.
I never would have been able to finish it if I hadn’t been reading it for a group.
Will definitely never again read something by this author.

The narrator is good but a little slow, however if you speed her up to 1.25, she becomes excellent.