Grace (BURTSBOOKS)'s Reviews > Optimists Die First

Optimists die first is a forgettable, unoriginal, tropey YA romance. I would give a synopsis but I can barely remember a thing about what went down in this book. Maybe that’s my fault for waiting over a month to write a review but isn’t the point of a book to leave a lasting effect?

I usually write reviews 6 months later and I’ve literally never had this problem before. I don’t have a photographic memory or anything, those other books were simply just doing their job better.

When I was reading this I didn’t think it was a particularly bad book I just felt like I’ve read it a million times before. The 'boy fixes girl' trope is over done and annoyingly offensive and unrealistic, not to mention it’s been done in more captivating ways.

I wouldn’t recommend this one, solely because there are so many other books to be reading.

P.S. The cats were good. I liked the cats.

******Edit****

Yeah, hi. So I’ve been thinking a lot about anxiety lately. Or more importantly anxiety rep and how it sucks.

Before I started researching anxiety rep in books I didn’t even realize this book was considered a “mental health” book. Apparently this is a book about anxiety. Which yes on a base level I realized that the main character has some skewed quirky paranoia that is labeled as anxiety. I just didn’t realize this could actually be labeled as rep. I didn’t realize people who don’t have anxiety would go into this book expecting to have a better understanding of the illness after they were finished reading. I didn’t realize that I, as someone with anxiety was supposed to feel comforted and/or relate to this book. The anxiety in this book is a joke. Not as in it's written badly(which it is) but as in it is made into a joke. According to Susin Nielson, anxiety is apparently something quirky and relatable and fucking hilarious. Petula’s (the main character) unrealistic worries are made to be something outlandish and over dramatic and it is apparently supposed to be funny.

Like I said in my first review I don’t remember much about this book but I do remember Petula taking a different route to school to avoid a construction site every morning because she was worried about getting injured. This comes up several times in the book and eventually the love interest (of course) gets her walk by the construction site and she realizes how silly she was and blah blah blah. Petula’s fear of this construction sight is the joke. You are supposed to laugh at her and all the time she takes out of her day to make sure she doesn’t die while walking by. The reason I remember this specific part of the book so well is because I am that person. I’m the girl that will take the longer route to avoid a construction site or a particularly strange looking store or even just a strange looking tree and I found It really offensive that 1) this was made into a joke and 2) apparently walking by it fixed everything. I’ve walked by construction sites when I couldn’t avoid it, that doesn’t make the fear disappear and it didn’t fucking cure me. Petula’s anxiety is there simply as something quirky about her. This book isn’t even about her recovery. It isn’t her paranoia she has to get over it’s her tragic back story. If she gets over that than her anxiety will go away and she will be fixed.

Which is shit. Anxiety isn’t curable and I’m sick of YA authors pretending it is. No guy is going to change that. Someone telling me that I will be okay isn’t going to make me believe it no matter how good looking that someone is.

I’m not saying I can’t find humour in anxiety because sometimes I’m so unrealistically scared it’s hilarious. It’s okay to laugh at ourselves, sometimes that’s all you really can do but when someone else is making fun of that same thing it hurts. The thought of someone reading this book who doesn’t have anxiety or an understanding of it and laughing or thinking this is what anxiety is honestly makes me sick.

I don’t care about the story or if can remember any of it. This is what can be picked up from the first 30 pages. Anxiety is made in a joke of the back of the damn book. Even if this was a beautiful story and not an overdone trope it wouldn’t change the negative stereotypes it perpetuates and I’m so sick of it. I’m sick of mental health books written by people who have no idea what they’re talking about.

So yeah, this probably made no sense but I’m honestly too pissed to care. I’m changing this to 2 stars instead of 3. That’s all good bye.

**** I realize this is pretty harsh but as expressed I’m really annoyed. My experience’s with anxiety are of course not the be all end all of anxiety, so if you connected to this book in anyway please just ignore me. I’m happy that you’ve found something you can relate to. ****

For good rep of anxiety read They Both Die at the End or Six of Crows... yes Six of Crows... Kaz Brekker.. the legend... the myth.... the icon... his PTSD had me in tears. It was the most relatable thing I ever read about.