ARC Review: We Should Hang Out Sometime

We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, A True Story by Josh Sundquist
Publisher: Little, Brown Books
Release Date: December 23rd, 2014
Source: Netgalley
Date Read: 2/4/15 to 2/8/15
336 pages
Rating: ✰✰✰

A bright, poignant, and deeply funny autobiographical account of coming of age as an amputee cancer survivor, from Josh Sundquist: Paralympic ski racer, YouTube star, and motivational speaker.


Josh Sundquist only ever had one girlfriend.
For twenty-three hours.
In eighth grade.

Why was Josh still single? To find out, he tracked down the girls he had tried to date and asked them straight up: What went wrong?

The results of Josh's semiscientific, wholly hilarious investigation are captured here. From a disastrous Putt-Putt date involving a backward prosthetic foot, to his introduction to CFD (Close Fast Dancing), to a misguided "grand gesture" at a Miss America pageant, this story is about looking for love--or at least a girlfriend--in all the wrong places.

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I received this from Netgalley in exchange for my honest opinion. All quotes were taken from an uncorrected proof that may not be accurate in the published work.

We Should Hang Out Sometime is a true story of an amputee cancer survivor, and his failures with girls. First off, I requested this without knowing anything about Josh Sundquist. I didn't know he was a YouTube star or that he was a Paralympic ski racer. Nevertheless, I did enjoy his story, but I did have a couple problems with it.

There's not much I have to say to summarize, other than Josh is this guy that tries really hard to find a girlfriend. Like really, really hard. So hard, that it results in a lot of random graphs and infographics throughout the book. 

One of the main problems I had with the book was that it was really repetitive. Basically what happens is that Josh finds a girl, tries to get with her, fails somehow, then years later contacts them through social media to meet with them, to find out what he did wrong all those years ago. But he does this with ALL THE GIRLS, and it just happens again and again.

I feel really bad, and I kind of pity him. Because he's just going for it, and going for it, and it just never works out. But that's life basically. 

Another problem, which kind of pissed me off, was the whole friendzoning thing. Ah yes, being friendzoned, the worst thing in the world. There's numerous mentions of being friendzoned and how Josh doesn't want to go down that path. He doesn't say outright that girls and women aren't allowed to just "friend" guys, but this whole novel kind of portrays that. 

It's also kind of weird, and stalker-ish, that Josh searches for these girls and calls them and asks them why they broke up with him. Okkk there. 

But other than that, the novel is pretty quirky. And pretty funny. Also it was a fast read. Sundquist did try to make his experiences into a life lesson, being an amputee and all. I did appreciate that though, since he came to terms with his obsession with having a girlfriend.

The truth is, I only thought of Stella as a stalker because I wasn't interested in dating her. If I had been attracted to her, I might have thought her tendency to plan her life around mine was cute. That's the thing about us human beings: If we have a crush on someone, that person's every behavior attracts us even more. But if we don't like that person, the very same behavior will annoy us.

Even though I did have some problems with We Should Hang Out Sometime, it's not the worst read. I wouldn't suggest reading this if the whole friendzoning thing and the whole "I must have a girlfriend" thing bothers you (as it did for me), because it WILL get on your nerves. Sadly.