A girl who seeks a leadership position must be smart, competent, hardworking, attractive, and, above all, nice. She must be all of those things in order to stand a chance against a male opponent, who frequently only has to be some of those things, and sometimes isn’t any of them.
Rating:
4.5/5 paper planes
What’s This Book About?
Genre: YA Contemporary; Feminism; Rom-Com
Publication: 14 Sep 2021
Pages: 416 (paperback)
Synopsis: Eliza Quan fully expects to be voted the next editor in chief of her school paper. She works hard, she respects the facts, and she has the most experience. Len DiMartile is an injured star baseball player who seems to have joined the paper just to have something to do. Naturally, the staff picks Len to be their next leader. Because while they may respect Eliza, they don’t particularly like her - but right now, Eliza is not here to be liked. She’s here to win.
But someone does like Eliza. A lot.
Shame it’s the boy standing in the way of her becoming editor in chief…
Content warnings (highlight to see): sexism; near-miss sexual assault of secondary character; racism
What I Thought:
This was so good and seriously bingeable. I know my Goodreads record might show that I read this over a month, but really I finished all of it over a few days as I was so busy at the beginning that I didn’t actually get beyond the first couple of pages.
While this book does raise and tackle serious issues (for example a near-miss with sexual assault of a secondary character, recollections of generational trauma), it is also hilarious with plenty of light-hearted, feel-good moments. I think that balance made it ‘easy’ to read because I never felt too exhausted by all the questions raised, especially as these issues are certainly alive and well today. It was great to have some discussion questions at the end of the book too!
My favourite thing in this book was the nuance. Eliza isn’t a mould of a ‘good’ feminist; she learns about and questions what she thought ‘feminism’ was, as I’m sure many of us have and continue to do. I really enjoyed Eliza’s reflection on her beliefs and behaviour, and realising that her sister and mother aren’t necessarily ‘anti-feminist’ just because they don’t label themselves, or don’t navigate the world in the same way that Eliza does.
Gif depicting a worried blonde girl with a ponytail, Adora/She-Ra, fretting and the subtitle ‘Where’s the message coming from?’
There is also welcome representation of ‘girl power’ in different forms and a critique of internalised misogyny.
Gif depicting a group of allies in Netflix’s ‘She-Ra’ series, including several princesses.
Serena was my favourite side character, and I loved that she was the ‘girly girl’ initially dismissed who then became so invaluable with her power and agency recognised. It was great to see Serena get a development arc in addition to Eliza!
Gif depicting a tanned and light blonde flower princess, Perfuma from Netflix’s ‘She-Ra’ series, smiling and saying ‘I cast friendship and support on my next turn’.
This is a book that would have been amazing to read as a teen and I’m glad at least that today’s young people get to discuss these issues in the context of a nuanced narrative. It feels quite important that there is the space allowed for flawed and problematic views to get depicted so they can then be unpicked. When sexism is as ingrained into modern society as it is, I feel like it is especially necessary to directly break down why certain ostensibly ‘common-sense’, ‘way of the world’ views can actually be harmful. Eliza isn’t perfect – who is during the tumultuous, intense social pressure cooker that is teenagehood? – but I enjoyed watching her grow and learn new things alongside her.
Gif depicting a scorpion lady with short silver hair, Scorpia from Netflix’s ‘She-Ra’, writing in a notepad, subtitled ‘Taking notes’.
The bit about where that commonly quoted ‘well-behaved women seldom make history’ line comes from blew. My. Mind. Context is everything! And it’s so true, isn’t it? While this isn’t quite the same, the scene reminded me of the long focus by archaeology studies on elites (especially men) and their remains and stories.
I learn that the slogan “Well-behaved women seldom make history” is originally from an academic article about Puritan women who were, in fact, very well behaved. The book points out that large portions of history, and ways of looking at history, are lost when we don’t pay attention to the lives of women who aren’t necessarily fighting to be heard.
…Feminists, after all, are often seen as women who do act out of line. And yet, could it be that a truly feminist version of history might also be about women who aren’t “feminists”?
Our charismatic male lead, Len, might not have been rendered in as much depth as Eliza, but I ended up liking him all the same. I did go through a period of intense dislike where I expected the romance to culminate in a catastrophic collapse in a nice twist or ‘lesson’, but I enjoyed how Len shows that men can totally be feminists too. The romance was quite shippable, though it did seem to suddenly escalate in a way that felt almost out of character? That said, who knows, as I’m sure a lot of hormones were surging about for the both of them! Aside from the romantic arc, I would have also liked to see more on Eliza and her sister Kim’s relationship development too.
Gif depicting a a pink-haired sparkly girl and a dark-haired cat-like girl from Netflix’s ‘She-Ra’, eyeing each other worriedly.
Just a quick bonus thing I loved in this book before I wrap up: I enjoyed the Cantonese immensely! I wasn’t expecting it and I had a great time pointing out all the funny bits to my family, especially the ones about Eliza’s own family.
Overall, this was an entertaining and engrossing read that also manages to address complicated issues of sexism, feminism and family with nuance and skill. I’d recommend particularly if you like characters who aren’t classic ‘good’ and make mistakes that the reader too can learn from.
Thank you to NetGalley and Usborne for an eARC for an honest review.
Purchase ‘Not Here To Be Liked’ here through my Bookshop.org storefront! (This is my affiliate link, so if you order through this you’ll be supporting me, my blog – and indie bookshops! – at no extra cost to you.)
Thanks for reading! Have you read ‘Not Here To Be Liked’ or Quach’s other novel ‘The Boy You Always Wanted’? Do you like coming-of-age stories with complicated protagonists? Let me know any thoughts below!
Notes From a Paper Plane Nomad 
such a wonderful review, I’m glad you enjoyed this one too!! there were so many reviews that I feel like missed the point about eliza—she wasn’t MEANT to be a conventionally likable character, and that’s how she was meant to be written!! it’s in the title, right? not here to be liked!!
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Thank you so much and I’m glad you did too!
Yes I get what you mean. I did see a few reviews that pointed out problems with Eliza that I feel like focused more on her in the book’s early sections and didn’t give enough credit to Eliza’s development, let alone the fact that Eliza is just a regular person and I’m sure most of us have thought like that at some point! To be honest, I think if Eliza had ended the book as this sort of ‘perfect’ feminist that has completed all the thinking she needs to do to reach this pinnacle of fair wisdom (and likeability), that would have been pretty unrealistic as well…
Looking forward to reading Quach’s next book, it sounds like it’ll be complicated as well 😂
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