I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle

I Love You Beth Cooper
by Larry Doyle
Pub. Date: May 2007
Genre: Fiction
255pp

Synopsis from BN.com:
Denis Cooverman didn't want to give a typical graduation speech, cherishing memories and embracing challenges and crap. So, instead, he stood up in front of his 512 classmates and their 3,000 relatives and said something really important: "I love you, Beth Cooper."

It would 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 then there's Kevin, Beth's remarkably large boyfriend, in town on furlough from the United States Army. Complications ensue.

Denis comes of age overnight in this exhilarating, endearing novel that reminds us why we can't wait to escape high school but can never leave it behind.

Why I Picked It:
I had to take a break from the heavy, historical, angry, or terribly emotional reading!! Time for something easy and fun. And what could be better (noting my recent Facebook-induced high school nostalgia) than a book about the awkward teenage years and unrequited love!

My Review:
If I hadn't already been nostalgic for John Hughes films (thank you Traci for posting quotes from The Breakfast Club on Facebook!), this book would've done it. Written in a style that plays out like a movie, it was hard not to thoroughly enjoy this book.

Basic synopsis. The geek valedictorian is in love with the lead cheerleader he's sat behind in class since junior high. But the lead cheerleader happens to be dating a psychopath. Comedy ensues. Think you've already heard it/seen it all? Well, Larry Doyle, former writer for the Simpsons, takes all the teenage cliches and puts his own spin on them. I was giggling and annoying my husband by keeping the light on in bed for three nights straight.

(Side Note: I'm wondering if it is at all possible for me to find a book without an antagonist/villain named KEVIN?? That's my baby boy's name, although to be honest, he is quite an antagonist around here as well...)

I really have a soft spot for Denis. He makes lists - lists of scenarios in which his dreams might come true... For example:

"Denis could imagine any number of scenarios under which his conquest of Beth Cooper would be successful:
if Beth went to an all-girls school in the Swiss Alps, surrounded by mountains, hundreds of miles from any other guys except Denis, son of the math teacher, and Beth was failing algebra, for example;
if Denis was a celebrity;
if Denis had a billion dollars;
if Denis was six inches taller, and had muscles.
Any one of those scenarios."

Classic high school banter between Denis and his best friend Rich ("Hey, so: I'm not gay, dude.") as they sit around waiting, hoping for Beth Cooper to arrive at Denis' "party", Rich says,

"You know she's not going to come."
"I can construct at least six scenarios where she comes."
"Stop constructing scenarios, dude. School's out."
"1)," Denis enumerated, "her 'other thing' gets cancelled; 2), it's too crowded and loud..."
"She'd hate that."
"You don't know her."
"Yeah, I don't have six years' experience smelling her hair."
It was ugly.

I Love You Beth Cooper, is fast-paced and highly-entertaining. My favorite things about this book -- the sarcastic narrative that is so descriptive you can clearly picture the movie playing out before you:

She pulled her cell phone from her purse and tossed it out of the car. "GPS that, asshole."
The phone flew through the window of a passing Honda Civic and hit Harold Angell, a thirty-four-year-old nurse practitioner who had no ironic connection to anyone in the car.

and the actual ironic connections: Like when the out-of-control car Denis is in crashes into the side of his parent's "parked" Prius (yes, "parked" in THAT sense), and Denis' father staggers out of the backseat with his pants around his ankles. So they speed off while his dad mutters, "Kids!"....

Yeah, if you ever went to high school and have a few hours to reminisce, you should pick this one up. I'm pretty sure I recognize everyone in this book! :)