Sang's story is hilarious. Yes, I feel badly for her when her parents are yelling at her or monitoring her food intake (even though she doesn't actually have an eating disorder), but I also couldn't help but laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of some of the situations. It's probably funnier because the story is written from Sang's point of view. You get to be in her head with her, privy to all the sarcastic comments she doesn't say aloud. You also get to see all the different versions of events as they play out in her mind. Sang is repeatedly envisioning one set of events in her head, but chickening out from saying the words that would get those events to occur. This thought process demonstrates exactly why the novel's title is What I Meant...

What I really enjoyed about this book, though, more than how funny it is, is that the resolutions to the conflicts aren't exactly what you would think, or maybe even what you would want them to be. In Young Adult novels, there is a tendency to go the formulaic route: the mean girl gets what she deserves, the dork decides he doesn't need to be popular after all, and the girl next door ends up with Mr. Right. Marie Lamba doesn't go the typical route with her ending, which makes the book all the more realistic. (Don't worry, I won't spoil it for you.) Not every story can be a fairytale, but that doesn't make it bad either.