This was a lovely read

This book reminded me of all the teenage rom-com movies I watched as a teenager, in the late 90s, except that the mains in this book are queer. I would have killed for a movie like this growing up in that time period. Anyway, the blurb mentions how this had the feel of She’s All That, and it just happens that it was one of the first movies I compared this book to so I completely agree with that statement. The story here is really nothing new, and there are a few “authors writing together for the first time” bumps, but overall this book just works and it is a read I would easily recommend.

This was a super sweet, best friends to lovers romance. If done well, this trope is really enjoyable to read and makes for a good romance which was the case here. This is a very slow burn, and I do wish it was a little less slow because the characters could have used more “couple time” but this book excelled in the ‘building feelings’ part. My favorite part of a romance is the ‘getting to know you’, the dating, when you see things starting to get more serious, and watching a connection build in front of our eyes. This was what this book really was about and it was exactly what I want in a romance.

While there was a lot of sweetness and lightly funny moments, I was surprised that this book had me close to tears more than once. There are some very emotional parts, and even just feeling bad for a character that is embarrassed or hurt because it’s like you take a bit of the hit with them. There were some parts of this book that were really well written, including close psychic distance, which means you actually feel what the main characters are going through and I love that as a reader.

While there were some really well-written parts, there were some debut bumps too. (This is a debut for one author and a debut for them as a writing team). I’m hoping a lot of this was only due to me having an early review copy, but I did find some inconsistency issues and what seemed like head-hopping a few times. There was also some writing that felt a bit choppy which was odd to me. We would go from such a lovely written part to something that didn’t feel right which was a shame since it jogged me out of my reading zone at times. When this book is on, you fly right through it so in comparison the few bumpy stops were disappointing. Again, hopefully, at least some of this will be cleared up and if not, most of these really are newbie writing bumps so the more these authors write together, the more I expect these issues will go away.

TLDR: This was a really well done YA/NA romance. I’m not sure if I call this YA or New Adult, but that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme since this romance just works. This book brought back some memories of the movies I grew up with, except this was how I wish they were actually written. While this book had some writing bumps, some parts were wonderfully written not just for a debut but for any book. I’m excited to read more from this duo and I would absolutely recommend this to best friend to lovers romance fans and rom-com fans. This is one you will not want to miss. 4.25 Stars

A copy was given to me to review.