Positively screaming right now. bouncing off the walls, even!!

Wren Martin Ruins It All is such a funny, heartfelt, and an incredibly frustrating book to read (for all the good reasons). The writing is just amazing, I actually loved Wren's voice! Normally I'd roll my eyes and try to push through a sitcom-y character narration, but Wren has that chaotic loser dork energy that quickly made me love him from the opening scene. What a guy (he's literally me). I like how genuine he sounds, how I'm able to understand him as a person, and he's just really randomly funny. I did laugh out loud while reading, and it's very embarrassing when your parents are literally right there watching the news on unfortunate events.

Also: ASEXUAL MALE MC!!! I love him, he's so true about everything ace (even though my personal preferences of sex-related things is very complicated) and he's so right! It's nice seeing an ace guy being so casual about it and accepting that part of himself. I can't speak for all ace people, but it hit so close to home when he opened up about his asexuality to his Buddy because same, being ace is usually a deal-breaker in a relationship, what with the pressure to reproduce and keep your relationship intact. I'm just so happy to see casual ace representation like this :)

I had a problem with the time skips, they were too abrupt; I think the entire novel's timeline spanned from september? to february, and that's not really long but the months passed by too quickly to process. In one chapter they'd be introducing the idea of a halloween dance, and in the next, Wren is already in the halloween dance. My point is that time passes too quickly between chapters, and I understand that the big night is the Dance, but I'd love to see some buildup toward the other smaller events. 

I love the supporting cast-Archer is my favourite himbo, Maggie's the Jade West girl of the group, Ryan's such a weird friend to have (but I thought she was a little passive and mean at times, but I still love her). I'm such a big fan of Ryan's victorian (?) goth spider dress!!! And her cute pompom/spider earrings!! What an icon.

And the plot- oh the plot was thickenings... Things were so messy and frustrating and joyful in the most fun way possible (because I like internal conflict), and my boy Wren is the most oblivious one ever, but if I weren't an omnipotent god hidden behind a wall of words, I'd definitely be making the same decisions and avoiding the very obvious signs (but I wouldn't be smart enough to fix everything before school ended).

Big TW though for loss of family member (past), cancer, grief, and terminal illness.

This book had be giggling, kicking my feet, screaming internally, tearing up, and physically trying to tear my ears off. Highly recommend.

Thank you NetGalley, and Holiday House/Pixel Ink/Peach Tree for this ARC!