She Drives Me Crazy

'She Drives Me Crazy' is a relatively new, YA, LGBT romance book from Kelly Quindlen. It came out in 2021 on kindle, but the actual paperback edition (the one I have) was only released recently. I have read one book from Kelly before, that being 'Her Name In The Sky' which I loved but also experienced constant pain when reading because after the inciting incident, until around the last 20 or so pages it was just constantly painful interactions and thoughts from all our characters. It was well written though to be able to create those kinds of feelings so while I am hoping for something more upbeat from this (I still want the drama, obviously) I am confident that it is going to be provided.

We are first introduced to Scottie as she is playing a basketball game. She is playing a preseason game, but it actually has meaning as she is playing against their rival school, and against her ex-girlfriend (the 'getting embarrassed in a sports game and then coming back at the end with friend and family support and winning' is incredible cliche, but it would also definitely be satisfying to see after how much she was getting used and abused).

Seeing her ex through her eyes, there is a lot to unpack there. Including, but not limited to, how much she values her image over her supposed 'love' for Scottie. She used an example where a person got her car towed as a 'prank' (what kind of prank is getting someone to pay money to get their car back? Where is the funny?) and as she tried to chase after it she tripped and fell, cutting herself and starting to cry. Seeing how Tally, instead of just comforting her or being vexed about someone getting her girlfriend's car towed, she instead tried to quiet her down and tried to join the popular kid's group even more. That lack of care is what makes her a bad person. Her intentions obviously aren't going to be to hurt the person that she loves, but actions always speak louder than consequences, and the fact that she chose to act in that way shows that she, even if recognised, isn't the best as a person. I do think that her breaking up with Scottie, as we know that she cares more about her image and social standing than her, is commendable. Staying in an unhappy relationship and leading someone on when you actually aren't romantically interested in that person is a horrible thing to do so I am definitely glad that she was able to see that the feelings she had weren't going anywhere and break up with Scottie before it was too late.

Irene then, by comparison, is the same as Tally in a lot of ways, but different in the ones that actually matter. She doesn't really care for her image or is as meticulous with it as Tally is and she definitely seems like an annoying person when we are first introduced to her, but at the same time, with this being an enemies-lovers trope I am all for it. They have a car crash, where funnily enough both of them weren't paying attention, and for some reason, Scottie covers for Irene about the tow truck incident and that covering creates a misunderstanding where their mother's now both think that they're friends.

From the other book that I have read from Kelly, 'Her Name In The Sky' this one is definitely set with a lot of different ideas in terms of conflicts and all that. For one, coming out (I don't know about with Irene) is something that Scottie doesn't have to do as she has already done it and has a loving and accepting family. Something does tell me though, that Irene's parents who aren't even happy with her being a cheerleader, wouldn't be the happiest to have a bi/lesbian daughter. Additionally, this story is going to revolve around the angry, painful, loving, interactions between Scottie and Irene, rather than the other book being about the angsty, painful and sad, interactions between the other characters. That book being set in a smaller, more conservative town, meant that they were much less accepting, and the bullying that some of the people who came out as gay faced was horrible. Sometimes, however, you just want something lighter, and although this definitely is going to be a rollercoaster, it definitely won't reach the highs and lows of the other one, which is perfectly fine and doesn't mean that the overall story or book is going to be worse.

Irene is a much nicer person compared to Tally, and even when she is serious, or joking around trying to rile up it is never that serious or horrible. Meanwhile, Scottie is taking things way too seriously, and I can almost feel the horrible mistake she is going to make later on when they have grown closer, that she is going to have to beg for forgiveness for.

After overhearing that Irene is gay and that she needs money to pay for the insurance Scottie decides that she wants to make a deal with her. She will give her the one grand that she needs, and in exchange, Irene will 'date' Scottie. Of course, it won't be real, because two girls who are both lesbians and both good-looking could never date. That would be preposterous. Hot girls and dating each other, no that could never mix.

Anyway, moving on to the next sequence in the story, the one where the stakes are raised (what is going to happen if their deal is revealed? What happens once they actually develop feelings for each other? What happens when Irene's parents find out? etc) are we are meant to suspend our disbelief as paying someone 1k to come out of the closet, especially as the most popular person at a school, isn't really something that would happen in real life and is only meant for the book. It isn't too outlandish that I am taken from the story world though, so I don't really mind it too much.

There is something going on with Charlotte and Irene, something that ruined their friendship and something that made Charlotte not even want to let her on her property. We are just about to find out what this is when Charlotte is caught passing notes but luckily for Irene (and not for us) Scottie destroys the note before anyone can learn what happened between the two and Irene and Scottie start to grow closer. This is ruined by Scottie's constant thoughts of Tally, as you just know that she is going to mess something up somehow to do with Tally. Something like Irene and Scottie are basically dating and then Scottie gets too close, either intentionally, or more likely, manipulated by Tally, and then that causes drama between them where Scottie is going to have to apologise. I think that this drama will be good, as obviously just having Scottie give up on Tally towards the end of the book will remove all the drama from it, and make it a lot more boring, no matter how much I hate Scottie's obsession with Tally.

At Charlotte's party, which Irene was only convinced to go to because of Scottie's act of heroic note scrunching, Charlotte reveals a video of Irene, from over a year ago while really drunk, basically saying that she wasn't gay and while she would sleep with a woman it would mean nothing to her. This is of course something that Charlotte baited her into saying, by basically trying to either force her to come out, or get her to slip and say something homophobic (which obviously didn't work since she isn't homophobic). I dislike Tally, moreso because of her obsession with Scottie and the obsession that Scottie has back towards her, but that feels like child's play compared to how far Charlotte is willing to go. It heightens the stakes even more because if Charlotte found out about their arrangement she'd instantly out it, and that would make even more people convinced that Irene wasn't actually gay.

Honey-belle, apart from Irene, is probably my favourite character. She is sort of naive, but really sweet and genuinely just an overall lovely person. She is sociable, and being Irene's best friend cannot be easy with how many things she is going through, and yet she is able to do that with a smile on her face all the time. I do hope her character gets expanded throughout the second half of the book, as right now, although I like her character a lot if it remains this way for the whole book then it will feel a bit shallow.

Anyway, after this, they end up going over to Honey'belle's house and having a sleepover. Irene and Scottie are given Honey-belle's bed by Honey-belle herself and so end up sleeping together in the same bed, without doing anything obviously. Although they aren't at a stage to even start admitting their feelings for each other, I can definitely tell that this moment made them grow closer, and with how much they keep hanging out after this (such as going on a double date with Honey-belle and Gunther) and then I looked at how many pages there were left in the book, and that both the Charlotte storyline, the Tally storyline, the cheerleading storyline, and the basketball storyline have all not been resolved.

I looked at saw over a hundred pages left in this book and my heart started to hurt already. I threw fits, tried to do magic, or even summon ancient beings from other worlds, but none of it worked, and I was left reeling as I now had to plough on with the rest of the book, no matter how much I already knew it was going to hurt me.

And then, with them still being unable to admit their feeling for each other, after getting revenge on Tally by winning the basketball game against them in the actual season Honey-belle basically makes a drunken toast, and it ends with her wanting to see the two be affectionate, and that results in them kissing. It was done in the heat of the moment, but at least right now they do now care and just enjoy the feeling of each other, savour it, because it doesn't feel like it is going to last for a very long time (even if, yes, they are back together by the end of the book, and there is under 100 pages left, that still isn't a long time). There is an emphasis by Scottie's sister, Thora, since the start of the book that Irene is going to be the one to hurt Scottie but I, as I have stated numerous times, definitely think that it is going to go in the opposite direction and that Scottie is going to hurt Irene. No way can she be that obsessed with Tally and still have her love life ending without drama.

I was sure that they weren't going to admit their feeling for each other that quickly, but on Christmas, after going back to Irene's house she gives her a present and then end up kissing. Irene says she is over Charlotte, but Scottie still says she isn't over Tally so they decide to take a break. This is better than the alternative of her never dealing with her feelings and issues with Tally and the fact that she is actually, actively, trying to get past those feelings so that she can be with Irene is probably the healthiest thing that she has done in this book. Or I would say it is the smartest thing that she has ever done if she didn't decide to not only visit Tally but also go to a party hosted by Charlotte's boyfriend with her. One that Charlotte is actually at!

She has already seen what Charlotte is willing to do, and how she was planning the downfall of Irene for over a year and yet she still doesn't take this into account and goes around like nothing is wrong. This girl needs a good slap to get her head on straight. Not in that way though-you get what I mean. Anyway, I can't wait to see how Scottie is going to mess this up and cause Irene a lot of pain and then have to make it up. And how her friends are going to look at her differently, including her parents, and are going to be very disappointed in her too.

Tally kisses Scottie while upstairs in Charlotte's boyfriend's house and you just know that this is going to be the thing that is going to come back to bite her, especially since she kissed her back for a little bit, like the naive idiot that she is. If she, after the incident, went up to Irene and told her that Tally kissed her, everything would be fine, and even though she hasn't seen her since I still know that she isn't going to tell her the next time she sees her. Or she is going to delay it to a point where the reveal holds a lot more weight.

Or not because it is revealed literally in the next scene. It is heartbreaking to see Irene act so calmly as if she doesn't care while we know that she does deeply. This isn't something Scottie is going to be able to fix halfheartedly and she is not only going to have to give her space and time, but she is also going to have to show Irene that she is worth it and that she can actually trust her again. She doesn't start instantly, although she does talk to her about her feelings and they do come to some sort of agreement where Scottie is going to try and rectify her feelings over Tally, by healing from the damage she did, while Irene is just going to be doing her normal thing, I guess. I didn't really like how quickly the sadness and anger were resolved on Irene's side, especially since she was literally throwing up after seeing a picture of Tally kissing Scottie.

There is something that she is going to do for Irene though, as she is finally over Tally, but it doesn't really have the same feeling as in the first half of the book and while this may be unfair, it also feels like their relationship is now tainted by what Scottie did, especially since Irene didn't even tow her car on purpose, and it was a complete accident and coincidence that it was her car (as she was trying to tow Charlotte's boyfriend's car, who had a rental that was the exact same model and colour as Scottie's car).

After sitting out of the first half of the final basketball game, Scottie's grand gesture (taking into account that Irene doesn't like grand gestures that don't really have anything to do with the other person, and are all about the person trying to make that grand gesture) she does a cheer routine and having invited Irene's mother, basically wanted to show that cheerleading is a sport and that the people who do it should be considered athletes. It works, they kiss, and then they get back to the game where Danielle ends up hitting the game-winning three, after some Russell Westbrook-esc free throws from the opposing PG (she went 1 - 4) and everything is back to how it was supposed to be. The final chapter is just about Irene doing another grand gesture, but for themselves, even if it did include a boombox, and then updates about all the other characters' lives.

So, the book in its entirety, did I like it? Yes, I really liked how light-hearted this book was, and the characters in this book did feel relatively realistic (I do still stand by my stance that Honey-belle could have used more development. Yes, you don't need to have all characters have development, but with the kind of person she was, and maybe it was just wishful thinking as she was my second favourite character, I wanted to see more from her and more on her characterisation).

And then talking about the parts I disliked, because there were definitely some. Starting off with how quickly Irene forgave and got over the hurt from seeing Scottie kissing her ex even if they weren't technically together during that time. It felt like Scottie was getting excused from her behaviour because she hadn't healed from her previous relationship with Sally, which she definitely hadn't, but she also didn't deserve to be forgiven that quickly (yes, Irene can do what she wants but it doesn't mean that I have to accept it because it is a book character, not a real person).

Secondly, once that was resolved it didn't really feel like there was anything going on after that. I know that as you move towards the end of a book you're not going to get as much action (once you're past the resolution) but it definitely did feel like it was wrapped up too neatly. There was nothing from Charlotte after posting the Instagram photo of Tally and Scottie kissing except for when she appeared at the end and threw a fit over losing the student-athlete prize. She needed more, and it felt like there was going to be more but then it was like the tone of the book shifted to them, the characters, focusing instead on themselves. That could be, and probably was, intentional to show how Scottie started to care less about what other people's opinions of her, but just because it has meaning behind it, and that meaning makes sense, doesn't mean that the actual media produced is good (I learnt this the hard way when I recently went to Goldsmiths university and watched a movie called, 'Begotten'. If you see this and are thinking about maybe watching that movie, don't and if you have already watched it, my deepest condolences. It is basically a contemporary, artistic, narcissistic, pretentious, elitist, weird combination that is all thrown into one and then loved by the movie purists, 'because it has a message' while also not taking into account that it is just a shocking awful movie). Sorry for the rant but I needed to tell someone and get this off my chest somehow.

Now, back to the book, the diversity was great, and Kelly didn't make the characters act a certain way just because they were a certain colour or certain gender which was nice. Although Gunther and Kevin (?) were a bit shallow, and didn't feel really needed in the story.

This is an enemy to lovers, a fake dating scheme and in these, you usually have a lot of drama, angst, and pain which is what I was expecting. Not having that, I still can't decide whether I am unhappy with that, or actively dislike that aspect of the book.

Overall, a cute romance story, with some frustrating moments where Scottie act's really dumb (normal) Irene is badass, Danielle is amazing, and Honey-belle is so damn happy all the time. It was cute, but it wasn't grounded, which is what I like from a story more (I'm not saying that I don't like fantasy or sci-fi novels) I prefer books where the family isn't extremely close to the point where it is kind of weird, I prefer books that have a longer, drawn out drama and an ending that actually felt like there was some tension in it until the last couple of pages of the book, and this one didn't really check those boxes, no matter how much I actually did like this book overall for what it was.

7.4/10