The book is a mounted defense of the honor of a word that, she says, everyone uses—which is doubtless true. But when Reynolds writes that 'seemingly no word in the English language has come under as much fire,' it’s less convincing ... Like is framed as a rebuttal to complaints about the use of the word—but just who is this enemy constantly bashing its usage? Grammarians who live to nitpick? Someone from 1982? Barring a few discrete examples—a 2016 essay on CNN.com, for instance—the 'naysayers,' 'prescriptivists' and 'general sticks in the mud' are not clearly established. Reynolds does write that every woman she spoke to in the course of her research—she’s prone to such anecdotal statements—has at some point been made to feel badly about using the word. 'Like must work against the pervasive myth that it is a meaningless word, a word that makes women sound dumb,' she writes. She emphasizes the point repeatedly: To hate on the word is to show a bias against women, youth and marginalized people. Maybe a book with a wider lens, in celebration of the language of those groups, might have felt more worthy of a full-length exploration ... But narrow though her focus is, Reynolds wants to explore only so much etymology. She can’t seem to decide whom she wants to represent to the reader: Is she a curious explorer, a translator or one of us? ... By the time Reynolds spends a few pages recounting the time she woke up in her apartment to a strange man asking for someone named Sarah, it’s hard not to agree with her therapist, who, Reynolds notes, often tells her to get to the point. If she is as concerned with language as she claims to be, then why waste so much of it? ... She concludes that there are other things these scolds should be worrying about. Sure, but, like, then why does she care so much?

Convincing evidence for offering 'like' another chance in the American English vernacular ... Despite second-guessing her own language choices in this context, Reynolds smartly and lightheartedly shares various scenarios in which she feels using the word 'like' in conversation offers an advantage.

Rocky ... [Reynolds] proffers personal anecdotes and cultural criticisms at varying levels of relevancy ... Some...are incisive ... Others seem to drift from the like thesis entirely, including an extended interlude about My Cousin Vinny and a dive into Kamala Harris’s short-lived Brat era. Even with these diversions, Reynolds effectively mounts her larger argument: that people should embrace language’s changes rather than becoming cranky grammatical nitpickers exuding 'hall monitor energy.' It’s a passionate, if occasionally wearying, love letter to linguistic evolution.