How to Be the Best Third Wheel by Loridee De Villa

Description From NetGalley:

It’s the last year of highschool, and everything has changed . . .

After a summer spent in the Philippines with her family, Lara de la Cruz is eager to start her senior year and, most importantly, reunite with her three besties, Carol, Jasmine, and Kiera. Of course summer is the season of change, and Lara knew she’d have to get caught up on the major updates, hot gossip, and other shenanigans she may have missed. But what she did not expect was to show up on the first day of school to all three of her friends now in relationships. The mushy public displays of affection and lunches spent gushing about their new “boyfries” has Lara quickly realizing her last year of high school is nothing like she imagined. Since she’s been back, Lara’s long time frenemy, James, has become impossibly annoying. Sure, they are now both third wheels, but why is he asking her to tutor him in classes? And why, after they start spending more time together, does she begin to notice how cute he looks when he smiles . . . uh oh. Fighting for the attention of her best friends, catching some pretty new and confusing feelings for James, and wading through the pressures post-high-school plans all have Lara reeling. And to make matters worse, Lara’s beautiful and untrustworthy cousin conveniently appears and wiggles her way right between her and James’ budding relationship. Feeling like a third wheel in more ways than one, Lara must learn to accept that change is inevitable, love is complicated, and being the odd one out is sometimes where inner power is found.

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My Review:

**Warning*** Mild Spoilers

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. I have to say what drew me to this book was the cover, the diversity, and the idea of being a third wheel as I am definitely the third wheel a lot of the time. I will start off by saying that middle school me would have absolutely loved this book. I would have been able to devour it in one sitting and sigh dreamily afterward wishing I had a love like that.

Now that I am in my 20s, this book was a really hard read for me. There was nothing to me that made the male lead attractive as a love interest to me. I honestly had to go back and skim the book to remember what his name was for this review. It's James, by the way, if you're curious. He just has that class clown vibe to me mixed in with the player trope. I felt like he was more like an annoying brotherly character than a love interest. The author really did try to make him a more relatable character by talking about his strained relationship with his father and talking about his last relationship which went south. It just didn't do much for me.

I definitely felt that Lara was more relatable. I get the struggle of wanting to be happy for your friends but hating change. Especially, when you're all going to go your separate ways upon graduation. It's hard. You want to hold on as much as you can before you can't anymore. Lara was also funny at times and I enjoyed her interactions with her family. I did feel she herself was a little annoying at times and I did not understand her attraction to James. She claims to hate him, but in my opinion, treats him as an annoying brother, and then all of a sudden she starts to have feelings. I guess that can make sense if they had that close-knit friendship bond from the start, but that wasn't the case here so it felt unbelievable.

I will also say that I felt like the trope of all of Lara's friends dating all of James' friends was a little out there. That's a little too unrealistic for me. Sure, the girls all happen to get boyfriends over the summer while Lara was away. Believable. Them all being James' friends is definitely a stretch and very cliche. Also, I thought both of their friends were really rude. I get being nervous to tell a friend that you're all dating, but then lying about going on dates and turning what's supposed to be a girls-only hangout into a group date without telling them. While Lara was definitely uncomfortable with the change, she probably wouldn't have said no. It was just a weird situation all around and wasn't handled in the best way.

What I did like about this book were the bilingual conversations that happened between the families as I thought it was really interesting. I think it would have been great to have seen more of the family dynamic as well. I also did find Lara relatable. She wasn't a lost cause to me like James was.

Overall, I just wasn't right for this book. Again, middle school me would have absolutely devoured this and I get that teenagers aren't the most mature. I know I wasn't, but the whole book was just a little too cringe for me, so, unfortunately, I cannot recommend it.