Katy Loutzenhiser

The Girl Least Likely

To All the Boys meets The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (with a dash of Dumplin’) in this funny, romantic, and heartfelt coming of age story about a teen stand-up comic learning how to be her truest self, from the author of If You’re Out There. Gretchen has always been more of a “least likely” than a “most likely” kind of girl. So how does she somehow find herself living out every trope from her favorite rom-coms . . . ? The Best Friend Crush: Why is it suddenly so hard to act normal around her childhood BFF, Samuel? Must be time for a— Makeover(!): Black leather pants and some red lipstick are apparently enough to lend Gretchen the bravado to do an impromptu set at a comedy club and catch the eye of — The Roguish Bad Boy: Jeremy, the alluring young comic who thinks her name is Sabrina. It might just be— The Perfect Cover: A way for Gretchen to escape into her new funny-girl alter ego and figure out who she really is—and what she really wants. But as rom-coms have taught her, leading a double life can only last so long. . . . "A rom-com with six extra helpings of riotous comedy, The Girl Least Likely has so many laughs your actual day will be brighter for reading it.” —E. Lockhart, author of We Were Liars

Jana Jenkinns 

I absolutely adored everything about this book. I laughed, I cried, I shook my head, and felt all the feels. This audio book of this was so enjoyably narrated, and I really felt for Gretchen. All in all, definitely one I would recommend.

anderson elizabeth

Gretchen occasionally reads as “I'm not like other girls” but overall I think it worked for this story. The author, Katy Loutzenhiser, made a lot of references to rom-coms so if you're someone who likes the staples this is the book for you. I think the author captures the feeling of knowing that you're going into a transitional period in your life very well. Gretchen's stress and fear of Sam as well as her other friend leaving her once they graduate is something that I think people can relate to whether they're in high school or graduating from college. With the weight of the world has been working in the past two years I think that people are realizing that change is out of our control the sometimes we want to desperately cling onto what we view as a sense of normalcy and this book nails that. I could feel all of the frustration and Desperation that Gretchen had to just keep things as close to the way that they had been if she could in order to maintain a sense of peace that she had. And I think that it's so interesting that the author went into the way that while we try to cling onto a sense of sameness and the way that things have always been we also adapt and change on our own. Watching that internal struggle within it Gretchen with something that I found very interesting to read.

Thank you Netgalley for giving me access to an ARC of the audiobook. I enjoyed the narrator that was selected for this novel.

Nikki Sojkowski

**An audio ARC of this book was provided to me by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.**

This book has an amazing message. Sometimes, you put yourself in a box. You might not even realize that you’ve done it to yourself. You hit self-imposed limits and shut down when what you need to do is to learn to start questioning these limits. Do you really, truly, not like xyz thing? Or are you just scared of what could happen if you try it? Are you just scared about what could happen if it turns out that you like it?

In The Girl Least Likely, Gretchen learns so much about who she is and who she could be if she stopped controlling and judging herself. It was such a beautiful story to see Gretchen learn and grow, and I hope these lessons can become ones young girls can read and learn through Gretchen. You can be your own self-saboteur, so take a moment and think about what you might be holding yourself back from and why.

My favorite quote and life lesson:
“But I’m starting to think bravery isn’t some miraculous energy force I can hope will arrive one day. It might just be a decision. Honestly, a matter of saying ‘fuck it,’ or ‘why not,’ and then simply doing the thing.”

The Girl Least Likely

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