Confessions of an Optimistic Pessimist: Life, Love & Other Absurd Forces

“At fourteen you don't need sickness or death for tragedy."
~Jessamyn West

Angela Ellis is living life in the mall of patheticness. Whatever that means.

Fourteen-year-old Angela Ellis is sure she’s doomed to die of loserdomness. Her parents are constantly making out, MUCH to her humiliation. She’s stuck in her two older jockstrap brothers’ shadows. Her new kitten, Sheba, is trying to kill her. Her own cousin is ashamed to know her. She has a creepy stalker after an accidental kiss. Her chest is flatter than an ironing board. And to top it all, if she doesn’t act quickly she’ll soon be the last of her friends to get a boyfriend. Cue Ethan Stanford. Suddenly Angela might have the most awesomely awesome summer ever!

Life, Love & Other Absurd Forces is the first book in the Confession of an Optimistic Pessimist series (or, as I call it, C.O.A.O.P series), which is told in a sequence of diary entries as Angela comes to terms with her rapidly changing world – leaving behind middle school for good and greeting the completely different universe that is high school. A universe that is not only filled with things that TV and movies led her to expect – boys, friends, and drama – but also one that she fears will force her to mature and leave behind her natural sarcastic and joking ways.