Love You Hate You Miss You, by Elizabeth Scott
Scott, Elizabeth (2009). Love You Hate You Miss You. NY: Harper Teen. 288 pages.
So here’s something weird: this is the third Elizabeth Scott book I’ve reviewed and the second Elizabeth Scott book I’ve received (unsolicited!) in the mail! Even weirder: I got not one but two copies of this novel! Now don’t worry: I won’t let the fact that I got these books for free bias my review. Also: I will stop using colons.
Narrated in the first person and organized as both immediate descriptions of events and journal interpretations of the same, Scott’s novel follows Amy, a high school outsider whose best friend and partner in crime, Julia, has been killed in a car accident involving both girls. The first pages of the novel inform us that Amy has been in a rehab facility for alcoholism (she is being released when the novel begins); the bulk of the book chronicles her recovery from alcoholism and her grieving period.
As I read this novel, Julia Hoban’s Willow (which I reviewed here in February 2009) came to mind. Both novels feature characters coping with grief and guilt and both novels seem invested in examining this paring. Like Willow, Love You unfolds slowly, allowing us to reconsider–at the same time as Amy does–her friendship with Julia. As it becomes clear that Amy and Julia’s relationship was probably not the healthiest, the ways in which each girl was dependent on the other for certain compensatory care becomes clear as well. This is what complicates the story in an intriguing way and what makes the ending of the novel kind of bittersweet.
So, for now, here’s my official ranking of Elizabeth Scott novels: (I know, I know: the colon!) First place goes to Living Dead Girl, which still kicks the other two novels’ asses; second place is awarded to Love You Hate You Miss You for its complications and some subtlety; and a very distant third place goes to Something Maybe, which totally didn’t work for me.