Everyone Hates Kelsie Miller, by Meredith Ireland, follows Kelsie, whose best friend, Briana, just moved across the country and ghosted her, leaving her unsure what she has done to warrant it. When school golden boy (and Kelsie’s academic rival), Eric Mulvaney-Ortiz, asks her to come with him on a roadtrip to UPenn, where his girlfriend goes and where Briana is touring, Kelsie reluctantly agrees. Over the course of the trip, Kelsie finds herself having revelations about her role in her and Briana’s friendship falling apart, and simultaneously starts to see Eric in a new light.

I really liked Kelsie as a protagonist. She’s very intelligent, but not so amazing with people-skills. She’s sarcastic and a little harsh, but over the course of the book genuinely matures and learns to hold herself accountable for her behavior. I was definitely rooting for her, and I enjoyed her character arc.

I liked Eric significantly less. He just had no personality; I couldn’t find myself getting on board with him. His girlfriend has ghosted him, so he wants to go to UPenn to talk to her and do a grand gesture to try and convince her to not give up on their relationship. Part of my issue with this was how painfully obvious it is that he and Kelsie will end up together, so it’s difficult to invest oneself in his plot at all, but it also becomes much more difficult to ship him and Kelsie because he’s so hung up on another girl. I also didn’t find that her and Kelsie had much chemistry beyond the academic-rivals trope (which I do love, but this book was not the best example of it).

Books about friendship problems are always difficult for me, since I’ve had some traumatic experiences with my best friend ignoring me, so there was a point where I thought I was going to DNF this book, but I’m glad I pushed through. I really enjoyed the depth of Kelsie and Briana’s friendship, the flashbacks that we see of them, and the arc of the two characters throughout the book. It’s very much a friendship-centric story; the romance takes a little bit of a backseat, which is good because the friendship plot-line was much stronger and more compelling.

The roadtrip trope is always so fun, and it didn’t disappoint here; though not reaching maximum chaos for fictional roadtrips it did add some fun elements to the story.

Overall, I’m giving Everyone Hates Kelsie Miller 3/5 stars. The friendship plot-line and Kelsie’s character development are done really well, but Eric is such a drawback that it really detracted from the rest of the story for me. I would still definitely recommend it if you love roadtrip stories or friendship-centric books, since it does both of those aspects really well.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review!