Review - I Love You, Beth Cooper - Larry Doyle

I Love You, Beth CooperTitle: I Love You, Beth Cooper
Author: Larry Doyle
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publication: 2007, Harper Collins
Pages: 253 Pages , Paperback
Source: Library, thank goodness I didn't buy this book!
Rating: DNF
Denis Cooverman wanted to say something really important in his high school graduation speech. So, in front of his 512 classmates and their 3,000 relatives, he announced:It could have been such a sweet, romantic moment. Except that Beth, the head cheerleader, has only the vaguest idea who Denis is. And Denis, the captain of the debate team, is so far out of her league he is barely even the same species. And Kevin, Beth's remarkably large boyfriend, is in town on furlough from the United States Army.

I've been looking for a heart-warming read that will make me smile and make me feel a sense of happiness. When I saw I Love You, Beth Cooper sitting innocently on the shelf at the library, I was drawn in by the humorous, light cover and when I read the blurb, it confirmed my decision to check it out of the library. Oh, how pretty covers and interesting blurbs can be deceiving. This book was vile, disgusting, stereotyped and shallow, all wrapped up in pretty packaging. I'm not even sure where to start. This won't be a long review as I only got through 100 pages, but it will be a ranting one nonetheless.

 The blurb sounds sweet, innocent and entertaining. Our main character, nerdy Denis Cooverman, school outcast along with his best friend, Rich, decides to announce the love that he has had since grade seven for Beth Cooper, most popular girl in school and head cheerleader. He doesn't pronounce his love for her in private but instead, as the Valedictorian, he announces it in his graduation speech, in front of 3,512 people. Everyone sits in shock and Beth flounces off from the embarrassment of a nerd being in love with her. Beth and Denis than speak later, and he gets half-beaten up by Beth's soldier boyfriend, Kevin.  Denis that invites her to his house, claiming that there will be a party, but of course it's only him and Rich there. That's all I got up to because I could barely stomach the story.

Denis has got to be one of the most arrogant, idiotic, know-it-all, perverted characters I have EVER unfortunately had to come across.  He spoke in complicated phrases that  I couldn't understand half the time and generally made no sense, whatsoever. He often rambled about stupid things in what the author probably thought was in a logical manner, but managed to come across as conceited and full-of-himself. He took chances and never thought things through. I thought I would end up having sympathy for him because he was such an outcast, but I found none. The author made  him get into trouble and have stuff that you'd put down as "bad luck" happen to him, some may find it funny, but I just found it quite idiotic


That's not the real thing that irked me though, the thing that made me put this book down was how perverted and sexual the characters were. The things they thought repulsed me and just when I thought there wouldn't be another crude moment, there was one. I decided enough was enough and I abandoned it. There were such pathetic things him and Rich thought and stuff they said that disgusted me, I won't elaborate as I have got younger readers that read this blog, but there were way too many vivid explanations of boys going through puberty and I did not need to know a lot of what I was read. It was just tmi, too much information.

Him and Rich were also shallow and the other characters were stereotyped. The nerds falling in love with the most popular girl in school who happens to have a meathead boyfriend that is going to punch up the nerds. In the first 100 pages I read, it seemed that the only reason Denis liked Beth was because she was pretty, there was no depth to the story. There was no depth to the characters. They were one dimensional and taken straight out of a bad comedy movie. 

Obviously, I can't say much about this book because I only read  about a quarter of it, but from what I did read, I was greatly disappointed. This book has been turned into a movie and I think it is better off a movie than a book. I didn't find this book funny at all, despite the supposed humour that the book was supposed to contain. The characters had no personality and were stereotypes from a high-school movie. 

The romance that I found in this book was basically Denis just having continuous sexual thoughts of Beth and it was extremely off-putting. As a girl, I found their humour disgusting and degrading towards females. I would not recommend this all. I really try to finish every single book I finish, but if a book is this bad and doesn't show any signs of getting better I will abandon it so that I can spend time reading books I actually enjoy. 

A contemporary novel that I thought I would enjoy, but ended up hating. Superficial, shallow characters with no emotions whatsoever and inappropriate thoughts throughout what I read, I Love You, Beth Cooper, was not for me. I won't be reading anything by this author again, as I, personally, didn't enjoy his writing style that didn't generally make sense to me. If I could unread what I did read of this book, I would. Very disappointing.

I give it: DNF...no cupcakes.