Hissy Fit by Lani Lynn Vale is about wallflower Raleigh, who is madly in love with her co-worker Ezra. She has been in love with him since they went to school together, but he never noticed her. Until now. However, Raleigh is the clumsiest person alive and being together with her is not the easiest. And Ezra is the most loved teacher in their school, which makes him the love interest of others.
I was so excited to read a novel again and read about love and happy endings. What I got was a bit of a weird book. Raleigh is the clumsiest person alive. To be honest, I don’t believe that you can be this clumsy and unlucky. I think she should get her body checked out. Getting a nosebleed this often can’t be healthy. Also, getting a black eye and a bloody nose from a box of condoms is not the most realistic scenario. There were other scenes where I thought that this isn’t realistic. If you are a clumsy person and you know that you are prone to hurting yourself, then try to avoid dangerous activities (like climbing a tree)! I was really annoyed by Raleigh’s actions and also her thinking. She ran after Ezra for years and years. She was unhealthily obsessed with him. They went to school together and worked in the same school for more than five years until he finally noticed her! This makes Ezra an ignorant a*hole. How can you be so ignorant and not know one of your colleagues?! I just did not really get warm with the protagonists.
Another thing that annoyed me and also upset me is that they put Raleigh in a class with older teenagers even though the person in charge knew that Raleigh was not comfortable teaching older students after what happened to her years ago. This really upset me. It must have been so traumatic for her to be alone in a class full of older male teenagers. Also, why did no one talk about that one of the students tried to kill another one?! Like, it was kind of downplayed and not really important in the story. This shocked me! As the list goes on with aspects in the story that shocked and upset me or where just unrealistic, I want to quickly talk about one more thing. The way Raleigh lost her virginity to Ezra really upset me. In her drunk state she told him that she was still a virgin and a few moments later she wasn’t anymore. This fast development and not really talking about sex, isn’t the way someone should lose their virginity. It gives the reader the indication that, if you are obsessed with someone forever, you immediately can trust the person to have sex with you. Also, Ezra has been a sex-education teacher for forever and Raleigh for a few months and they did not use protection (she’s on the pill, but still)! Find the mistake.
One of the interesting aspects of the book is Morgan. Would have loved to have him in the book a little bit more. The book read pretty fast, but it was just not my cup of tea.