This was my first read from Robby Weber, and I enjoyed it!
I Like Me Better is a fun, low-stakes book perfect for summer and if you want a romcom with some excellent queer rep this is definitely for you. It had solid characters and a solid central romance though I did find myself struggling with my thoughts on the plot.
Our main character Zack is a soccer player and is in line to be his school's next soccer captain replacing a senior named Ryan. Ryan decided to pull a prank on a rival team that could potentially make him lose his scholarship to Duke and so he asks Zack to help him by covering for him. Zack lies and says the prank was him and gets community service and many personal problems in return.
The plot isn't bad in theory for sure but it just had a lot of oversights because yes Zack idolizes Ryan and lies for him because he convinced himself that was best for the team but if so many of his teammates and friends knew that it wasn't him in the first place why did they not ask him about it immediately?
Zack was also a bit lackluster for me. He isn't a bad guy and throughout the book you see him trying to grow and change but a lot of his struggle (especially in the first half) seemed pretty much his fault which was probably the point but I just found Zack very hard to sympathize with at all but I also saw how he could make the mistakes so I was stuck in a weird middle ground when reading.
I really liked the relationship between Zack and Chip though it was fairly fleshed out and the characters were believably interested in each other. I did however really love Noel as a side character and even though I liked the build of his and Zack's friendship I think it could have been interesting to explore Zack and Noel as a romantic option but I could just be a bit obsessed with enemies to lovers who knows?
I did enjoy my read of this though as I said it was a simple, fun, and fast read with really good Summer tones and I liked the pop culture references a lot (them being there could take me out of the scene a bit but they added to development) the characters were interesting and believable highschoolers. A highlight for me was also the Marine Institute along with the commentary on environmental friendliness though I feel like Chip did sometimes feel like an outlet instead of his own personality.
I Like Me Better is a fun, low-stakes book perfect for summer and if you want a romcom with some excellent queer rep this is definitely for you. It had solid characters and a solid central romance though I did find myself struggling with my thoughts on the plot.
Our main character Zack is a soccer player and is in line to be his school's next soccer captain replacing a senior named Ryan. Ryan decided to pull a prank on a rival team that could potentially make him lose his scholarship to Duke and so he asks Zack to help him by covering for him. Zack lies and says the prank was him and gets community service and many personal problems in return.
The plot isn't bad in theory for sure but it just had a lot of oversights because yes Zack idolizes Ryan and lies for him because he convinced himself that was best for the team but if so many of his teammates and friends knew that it wasn't him in the first place why did they not ask him about it immediately?
Zack was also a bit lackluster for me. He isn't a bad guy and throughout the book you see him trying to grow and change but a lot of his struggle (especially in the first half) seemed pretty much his fault which was probably the point but I just found Zack very hard to sympathize with at all but I also saw how he could make the mistakes so I was stuck in a weird middle ground when reading.
I really liked the relationship between Zack and Chip though it was fairly fleshed out and the characters were believably interested in each other. I did however really love Noel as a side character and even though I liked the build of his and Zack's friendship I think it could have been interesting to explore Zack and Noel as a romantic option but I could just be a bit obsessed with enemies to lovers who knows?
I did enjoy my read of this though as I said it was a simple, fun, and fast read with really good Summer tones and I liked the pop culture references a lot (them being there could take me out of the scene a bit but they added to development) the characters were interesting and believable highschoolers. A highlight for me was also the Marine Institute along with the commentary on environmental friendliness though I feel like Chip did sometimes feel like an outlet instead of his own personality.