Her Good Side by Rebekah Weatherspoon

Summary from Edelweiss:

**A New York Times Best Romance Book of the Year** A swoony, heart-melting YA romance from beloved author Rebekah Weatherspoon about two awkward teens who decide to practice dating in order to be good at the real thing. Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon and Jenny Han.

Sixteen-year-old Bethany Greene, though confident and self-assured, is what they call a late-bloomer. She’s never had a boyfriend, date, or first kiss. She’s determined to change that but after her crush turns her down cold for Homecoming—declaring her too inexperienced—and all her back-up ideas fall through, she cautiously agrees to go with her best friend’s boyfriend Jacob. A platonic date is better than no date, right? Until her friend breaks up with said boyfriend.

Dumped twice in just two months, Jacob Yeun wonders if he’s the problem. After years hiding behind his camera and a shocking summer glow up, he wasn’t quite ready for all the attention or to be someone’s boyfriend. There are no guides for his particular circumstances, or for taking your ex’s best friend to the dance.

Why not make the best of an awkward situation? Bethany and Jacob decide to fake date for practice, building their confidence in matters of the heart.  

And it works—guys are finally noticing Bethany. But things get complicated as their kissing sessions—for research of course!—start to feel real. This arrangement was supposed to help them in dating other people, but what if their perfect match is right in front of them?

So, I LOVE Rebekah Weatherspoon’s adult romances – super sexy, kinky, and funny. And I was super-excited to have made my one visit to The Ripped Bodice (since I don’t live in California) when Rebekah just happened to be picking up a shift. (I got my copy of Rafe signed, eeeee!) So I was really interested in Rebekah’s debut YA romance. And it sounded so cute.

Fear not! It does not disappoint! Her Good Side is an adorable but extremely relatable fake-dating romance between Bethany, a self-described late-bloomer who wants a little romance, and Jacob, the photography whiz who gets a rep as the hot guy who gets dumped. After Jacob gets dropped by Bethany’s friend for being “boring” (aka quiet and not overtly horny) and Bethany gets turned down for a date because that guy doesn’t want to be her first date (uh, sorta gross my dude), Jacob and Bethany concoct a plan. They will fake date to raise each other’s romantic profile in the school’s gossip network. Does this involve cute Halloween costumes? Yep. Does this involve joint babysitting of rebellious younger sisters? Yep. Does this involve yummy cooking exploits? Yep. And does this involved kissing for “Science”? Double-yep. And then those pesky feelings had to go and get involved.

Oh, these sweet, awkward babies. Look, I know horny teenagers are a thing, but as someone who was also very much “I don’t get the hype” and didn’t date until college because, like, idk I was more into talking and less into doing #iykyk, I heart Bethany and Jacob forever for this. Being a teenager is so weird. You could not pay me enough to go back. But also…would I have liked some “practice time” dating a cute person who wasn’t going to shame me or anything for not being experienced or super-horny or anything? Oh, for sure!

On top of the A-plot, Bethany is working through the process of figuring out who she is and who she wants to be. She’s got two moms and two sisters were/are incredible basketball players and Bethany herself is really good at it…but she doesn’t love it. And since the expectation is that she will also go off to play elite college ball and then pro, she’s so worried that it’s going to change how her family thinks about her if she quits. Her true passion is cooking (yall, her sandwiches sound amazing). The way Weatherspoon explores the process of figuring out yourself through Bethany is so good. Also a great group of diverse friends in this book which is always super fun in a YA. Definite recommend.

CW for some implied fat-shaming/food-policing because Bethany (who is plus-sized) is told she needs to fuel her body better (paraphrasing) for elite basketball.

Dear FTC: I swiped the paper galley from the bookstore.

American Royalty by Tracey Livesay

Summary from Goodreads: In this dangerously sexy rom-com that evokes the real-life romance between Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan Markle, a prince who wants to live out of the spotlight falls for a daring American rapper who turns his life, and the palace, upside down.

Sexy, driven rapper Danielle “Duchess” Nelson is on the verge of signing a deal that’ll make her one of the richest women in hip hop. More importantly, it’ll grant her control over her life, something she’s craved for years. But an incident with a rising pop star has gone viral, unfairly putting her deal in jeopardy. Concerned about her image, she’s instructed to work on generating some positive publicity… or else.

A brilliant professor and reclusive royal, Prince Jameson prefers life out of the spotlight, only leaving his ivory tower to attend weddings or funerals. But with the Queen’s children involved in one scandal after another, and Parliament questioning the viability of the monarchy, the Queen is desperate. In a quest for good press, she puts Jameson in charge of a tribute concert in her late husband’s honor. Out of his depth, and resentful of being called to service, he takes the advice of a student. After all, what’s more appropriate for a royal concert than a performer named “Duchess”?

Too late, Jameson discovers the American rapper is popular, sexy, raunchy and not what the Queen wanted, although he’s having an entirely different reaction. Dani knows this is the good exposure she needs to cement her deal and it doesn’t hurt that the royal running things is fine as hell. Thrown together, they give in to the explosive attraction flaring between them. But as the glare of the limelight intensifies and outside forces try to interfere, will the Prince and Duchess be a fairy tale romance for the ages or a disaster of palatial proportions?

Tracey Livesay writes Back Breakers in the Sack. UNF.

LOVED IT. Many stars, lots of chili peppers.

I keep trying to rec this to customers who liked or are interested in the Marry Me movie, but alas, this comes out in June! *womp womp* I was so sold on this two famous people who don’t really like the privacy intrusions/shit you get for being famous who are also from completely different worlds but who also fit together really well.

CW for his family being an absolute garbage fire except for his mom and she’s got some tough family history plus a shitty up-and-coming pop star internet bullying her/stalking her coattails. Also, racism bc British royalty.

I do want to talk about this cover bc she looks AWESOME and he looks nothing like I thought he did in the book. *shrug*

American Royalty is out today!!

Wicked Beauty by Katee Robert (Dark Olympus #3)

Summary from Goodreads: She was the face that launched a thousand ships,
The fierce beauty at the heart of Olympus,
And she was never ours to claim.

In Olympus, you either have the power to rule… or you are ruled. Achilles Kallis may have been born with nothing, but as a child he vowed he would claw his way into the poisonous city’s inner circle. Now that a coveted role has opened to anyone with the strength to claim it, he and his partner, Patroclus Fotos, plan to compete and double their odds of winning. Neither expect infamous beauty Helen Kasios to be part of the prize… or for the complicated fire that burns the moment she looks their way.

Zeus may have decided Helen is his to give to away, but she has her own plans. She enters into the competition as a middle finger to the meddling Thirteen rulers, effectively vying for her own hand in marriage. Unfortunately, there are those who would rather see her dead than lead the city. The only people she can trust are the ones she can’t keep her hands off—Achilles and Patroclus. But can she really believe they have her best interests at heart when every stolen kiss is a battlefield? A scorchingly hot modern retelling of Helen of Troy, Achilles, and Patroclus that’s as sinful as it is sweet.

God I fucking love Mess. And this is messy as hell.

(Maybe could have used a weeeeee bit more air in this relationship to make it workable – the timeline is very compacted – but that’s really just personal preference)

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

Summary from Goodreads: One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn’t see coming…

Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute. If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves. 

Do you wish that Nora Ephron was writing current RomComs? Can you quote You’ve Got Mail and When Harry Met Sally?

Then you need to read Book Lovers. (And also, if you loved Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation. You need to read this one, too. Obviously.)

The book opens as powerhouse literary agent Nora Stephens (*heart eyes*) is meeting literary fiction editor Charlie Lastra for a business lunch. Charlie would like to acquire a book from one of Nora’s authors – midlist, not blockbuster sales, so they’re shopping for a new publisher – but he has…notes. For one thing, it’s setting in Sunshine Falls, North Carolina, is unrealistic. The author, Dusty Fielding, has probably never been to Sunshine Falls. Besides, Charlie only picks winners and he doesn’t think this is a winner. Nora is already having a bad day – her current boyfriend just broke up with her by phone because he met a girl on a trip to Texas and now he’s dumping his Heartless Ice Bitch City Girlfriend – so she’s preparing to go Full Shark on Dusty’s behalf. She and Charlie verbally skirmish over lunch, exchange some email banter, and then…that’s it.

Two years later, and that book, Once in a Lifetime by Dusty Fielding, is a runaway bestseller. (HA!) It’s going to be made into a movie. (Double-HA! Take that, Charlie Lastra!) Her younger sister Libby has surprised her with a sister vacation so they can have some relaxation time before Libby’s third baby arrives. The destination? Sunshine Falls. (Libby is a huge fan of the book.) It’s not a great time – Dusty’s next book is due and she’s having some writer’s block issues – but as a literary agent Nora can work remotely. The other problem is that Nora is a City Girl. Very City. Loves it all. Is definitely Not a Small Town Girl. She’s the woman who gets dumped for the Small Town Girl Who is a Very Sweet Baker/Librarian/Gardener. But she loves her sister. So she goes. (Libby has a whole “Small Town Romance Novel Experience” bucket list planned.)

However, Sunshine Falls isn’t quite as picturesque as promised. Also, there’s a guy in line at the coffee shop (name: Mug+Shot, love it) who looks disturbingly like Charlie Lastra. In fact, when Nora does some covert emailing from behind a shelf, she realizes it IS actually Charlie Lastra. Why in the hell is New York City Editor Charlie Lastra in Sunshine Falls, North Carolina?? (Then there’s some hilarious email banter about Bigfoot Romances, lol.) Turns out, Sunshine Falls is his hometown. (More Banter. More Sexy Banter.) And then…Charlie comes on-board as Dusty’s editor.

Of Dusty’s new book. Which turns out to be titled Frigid. With a main character named Nadine Winters who appears to be a thinly-veiled version of Nora. It’s not a…flattering…version. So now Nora and Charlie have to work together – and try not to banter (oh they banter) – and not make out (OH, DO THEY MAKE OUT) to make Dusty’s next book a blockbuster. They definitely do not date colleagues. Ever. Besides, they’re both making different life decisions. Maybe. Or maybe, they are 110% Perfect For Each Other.

Y’ALL, Book Lovers is so fucking good, I’m mad about it. Absolutely enraged. It has no business being this good. But it is. It’s like a Nora Ephron Movie in book form, beamed straight into my brain. I want this made as a movie immediately. The banter. Sexy banter. The RomCom tropes and in-jokes. The RomCom Easter Eggs There’s a Small Town Bookstore in Need of Saving. I was crying in a cold bath by the end, think a “Kathleen Turner at her typewriter in beginning of Romancing the Stone” tears+snot situation.

The sister relationship between Nora and Libby is so good. Part of Nora’s over-arching goal in life is to ensure that Libby doesn’t go without. It’s a little bit of holdover from when their mom died unexpectedly, when Nora had to step up and be “mom” for a couple of years and has never been able to completely let Libby be her own woman, wife, and mother. Nora and Libby learn to re-negotiate their sister relationship over the course of this book and that is almost as satisfying as the A-plot romance between Nora and Charlie.

But what I really liked most, was that Nora does not drastically change her life in this book. This is not Heartless Bitch Goes to a Small Town, Grows a Heart, and Finds Love. This is Super-Competent Awesome Adult Woman Learns to Let Her Past Go, Be a Little Vulnerable But Continue Being Super-Competent and Awesome, and Good Things Happen for Her. And Charlie…Charlie is damn near perfect. He’s wickedly sarcastic, reads Bigfoot pr0n (even if it starts on a dare, he reads the whole damn thing), and is trying so hard to balance what he wants to do, with what he thinks his family needs, and with what he thinks Nora needs. (If Tom Hiddleston gets cast in this would-be movie in my brain, I might plotz.)

This is my new favorite Emily Henry book.

Book Lovers is out today!

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley from the publisher via Edelweiss. We’re calling an audible: the Teen Book Group at my store is going to read this in May, so I’m definitely buying and re-reading a copy, too.

One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle

Summary from Goodreads: When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mom, but her best friend and first phone call. She had all the answers and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. To make matters worse, their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: two weeks in Positano, the magical town Carol spent the summer right before she met Katy’s father. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone.

But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. Buoyed by the stunning waters, beautiful cliffsides, delightful residents, and, of course, delectable food, Katy feels herself coming back to life.

And then Carol appears—in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned, and thirty years old. Katy doesn’t understand what is happening, or how—all she can focus on is that she has somehow, impossibly, gotten her mother back. Over the course of one Italian summer, Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her. She is not exactly who Katy imagined she might be, however, and soon Katy must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue. 

BN Book Club is back in person at my store! Whee!

I didn’t love One Italian Summer, maybe a 3.5 star read but not quite a 4 star. I was interested in this exploration of one person’s grief (how I managed to read two novels about grief, one after another, I don’t know, not-great planning on my part), with a woman who seems not only to be best friends with her mother, but also seems to have let herself be subsumed by her mother in some ways. Katy almost can’t function without her mother telling her what to wear, where to eat, what to pack, and where to go (and even, whether she and her husband should have children). I really liked the idea that a woman who looks like Katy’s mom could help her process her loss in some way. Also, the descriptions of the food in Positano, my god did it make me hungry!

However, when the idea that the woman who looks like her mother turns into an actual timeslip of 30 years in the past and she IS Katy’s mother, Carol, it takes all consequences off the table. Completely. She sleeps with a guy who is not her husband, and yet when her actual husband appears near the end of the book everything is all fine and dandy and their relationship fixes itself. She has a fight with Carol which appears not to impact the timeline? The timeslip is almost like a get-out-of-jail free card in some ways. This is why I don’t like time-travel as a device.

But it was really, really nice to sit down with the core group of regulars who came to our Book Club meetings prior to the pandemic and see them all for the first time in two years. I really missed that.

Dear FTC: I had to buy my copy of this book from my store since we didn’t get any physical ARCs for the BNBC and we decided to do this in-person before I could get a DRC downloaded from Edelweiss.

Competitive Grieving by Nora Zelevansky

Summary from Goodreads: An Entertainment Weekly Pick of Summer’s Best New Books

Wren’s closest friend, her anchor since childhood, is dead. Stewart Beasley. Gone. She can’t quite believe it and she definitely can’t bring herself to google what causes an aneurysm. Instead of weeping or facing reality, Wren has been dreaming up the perfect funeral plans, memorial buffets, and processional songs for everyone from the corner bodega owner to her parents (none of whom show signs of imminent demise). Stewart was a rising TV star, who–for reasons Wren struggles to understand–often surrounded himself with sycophants, amusing in his life, but intolerable in his death. When his icy mother assigns Wren the task of disseminating his possessions alongside George (Stewart’s maddening, but oddly charming lawyer), she finds herself at the epicenter of a world in which she wants no part, where everyone is competing to own a piece of Stewart’s memory (sometimes literally). Remembering the boy Stewart was and investigating the man he became, Wren finds herself wondering, did she even know this person who she once considered an extension of herself? Can you ever actually know anyone? How well does she really know herself? Through laughter and tears, Nora Zelevansky’s Competitive Grieving shines a light on the universal struggle to grieve amidst the noise, to love with a broken heart, and to truly know someone who is gone forever.

Competitive Grieving has been on my periphery since last May, when Sarah MacLean (a fave) hosted Nora’s launch event on Instagram. I picked it up on my Nook a while back, but the paperback is coming out next month this summer so I decided to pick it up (and read one of my own damn books for once, lol).

I really liked this story about a woman who gets assigned the task of sorting out her suddenly-deceased best friend’s belongings. All the weirdness, and surreal nature of missing someone so suddenly, but also finding out that perhaps there was a side of her friend she never knew. Pieces of Stewart’s life start to emerge through other mourners – a deeply depressed young woman, a fellow less-successful actor, an old acquaintance from high school. Some of these mourners seem to be out-doing themselves in displays of grief, while Wren only feels numb, watching the “vultures” pick over Stewart’s belongings as she creates funeral plans for everyone in her head as a distraction. This book is darkly funny in some places. There’s also Stewart’s lawyer, also assigned to help Wren with her task, and also, maybe, someone she could open up to (and he’s kinda cute). In between each chapter, as Wren negotiates her reactions to Stewart’s death and life, she writes him an email in her head, asking him why he never told her what was going on.

I am going to give a trigger warning for discussion of major depression and suicide. In the book, as Wren investigates the parts of Stewart’s life that he hid from her, it becomes very clear that he fought serious depression and suicidal ideation throughout his life. And it is revealed later that he did die by suicide. It’s not something that is included on the flap copy, and while I had guessed that this would be a major reveal in the book given some foreshadowing by the author, I don’t want it to be a “surprise” plot point if that’s something a reader would wish to avoid.

Competitive Grieving will be out in paperback in May August (it got pushed), but the hardcover and ebook are available now.

Dear FTC: I think I had a digital galley of this via Edelweiss, but I read my copy on my Nook since I apparently bought it during a sale.

Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma (If Shakespeare was an Auntie #1)

Summary from Goodreads: Dating Dr. Dil features a love-phobic TV doctor who must convince a love-obsessed homebody they are destined to be together. 

Kareena Mann dreams of having a love story like her parents, but she prefers restoring her classic car to swiping right on dating apps. When her father announces he’s selling her mother’s home, Kareena makes a deal with him: he’ll gift her the house if she can get engaged in four months. Her search for her soulmate becomes impossible when her argument with Dr. Prem Verma, host of The Dr. Dil Show, goes viral. Now the only man in her life is the one she doesn’t want.

Dr. Prem Verma is dedicated to building a local community health center, but he needs to get donors with deep pockets. The Dr. Dil Show was doing just that, until his argument with Kareena went viral, and he’s left short changed. That’s when Kareena’s meddling aunties presented him with a solution: convince Kareena he’s her soulmate and they’ll fund his clinic.  

Even though they have conflicting views on love-matches and arranged-matches, the more time Prem spends with Kareena, the more he begins to believe she’s the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with. But for Prem and Kareena to find their happily ever after, they must admit that hate has turned into fate.

In the years since her mother died, Kareena Mann has been very slowly restoring both her mother’s beloved car and the house she grew up in. However, on Kareena’s birthday her father announces that he’s selling the house and moving to a retirement community. Now that her younger sister Bindu is getting married, there’s really no reason to keep the house. This was NOT the plan they agreed on. Kareena manages to talk her father into making a deal: if she gets engaged in four months – when her sister’s wedding celebration gets rolling – he will give her the house. (This whole morning conversation felt very Sixteen Candles when the movie opens and everyone has forgotten Samantha’s birthday.) So Kareena meets up with a friend later to have a few drinks and fume about the situation. And she sees a super-hot guy. And they start flirting, which turns to making out in an office…and then the guy PEACES OUT when his phone rings leaving Kareena stuck with her sweater vest caught on her earring and over her face. The next morning, when she’s good and hung over, she has to accompany her social media influencer (and math professor, I mean, get it Bindu, even if you are seriously the brattiest younger sister) to the taping of a local desi talk show, The Dr. Dil Show. As the show gets rolling and the topic of love comes up – during which the host who is a cardiologist says that love is bad for your heart and he doesn’t believe in it – Kareena realizes that this “host” Dr. Prem Verma is the same jerkwad who left her stranded the night before. So Kareena reads him the riot act about being a dog and they proceed to have one hell of a verbal smackdown. This wouldn’t be so bad – the show records to tape – except that Bindu has been streaming the recording live to her YouTube because Social Media Influencer.

Everyone loses control of the narrative. Prem loses financial backing for his dream project, a South Asian-centered community health center. Kareena looks like a shrew and has a snowball’s chance in hell of finding an actual nice guy to fall in love and marry her in four months now (for real – many chapters open with her messages with various shitty dudes on Shaadi.com and other dating sites). But Aunties to the Rescue: Kareena’s four aunties decide that Prem would be Kareena’s ideal match. If he can win Kareena – who is firmly in the “will marry for love or nothing” camp vs Prem’s “love causes cardiac damage” camp – the aunties will help get his funding back.

Kareena wants none of this. Even Prem’s suggestion that they fake date for four months until she gets the house isn’t a plan she can stomach. But Prem keeps showing up, trying to convince Kareena that he might make a great plan B. Despite all their verbal fireworks, he starts to admire and like this woman who wears sweater vests, stores peppermint coffee creamer in the freezer so she can have it year round, does her own DIY and restoration work on her car, and takes none of his bullshit. As verbal fireworks turn to a tentative friendship then to steamy sexytimes (A+, no notes), Kareena starts to think Prem might be capable of love after all. Prem has some secrets, though. And then it all falls apart.

LOVED IT! A great adaptation of a Shakespeare play (Taming of the Shrew) that could go sideways if too much of the original plot is kept sacred – I loved how you could see a little bit of Kate’s final monologue in there at the end but flipped and shared by both Prem and Kareena. (If you haven’t read Taming, or have but aren’t that familiar with it, don’t worry, you’ll be fine.) I loved their competitiveness, the pani puri eating contest, the TSwift love, and their wonderful circle of friends (lol, when his buddies show up for their weekly beer and dinner night and Prem has to keep them in the hall because Kareena is over). [Side note: you may have read in various reviews that Prem calls his dick “Charlie.” However, he calls it Charlie to himself only, he doesn’t tell Kareena his dick has a name nor does he ask her to call it Charlie. We are given a reason in the text for why he thinks this way. So this is fine to me. I mean, considering that I am not a person in possession of a penis I have no direct knowledge of this practice. Maybe some people do name their junk. *shrug* But it seems a number of reviewers are extremely weirded out by this. Don’t listen to the haters.]

The aunties are great, with the added bonus that they’re all named for other desi romance authors. I’m pretty sure one of the other books in the series will be a Much Ado About Nothing adaptation ❤

Dating Dr. Dil came out on Tuesday! (Copies are going fast, thanks to the power of the clock app)

Dear FTC: I read a digital galley from the publisher via Edelweiss.

Taking the Heat by Victoria Dahl (Jackson: Girls’ Night Out #3)

Summary from Goodreads: A fan-favorite from USA TODAY bestselling author Victoria Dahl, originally published in 2015. Passion this hot can’t be faked… All revved up for bright lights and steamy nights, writer Veronica Chandler chased her dreams to New York City. When she hit a dead end, reality sent her back home to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Saving her pride and her new gig–writing a relationship advice column!–requires some faking. No one can know the truth about her big-city flop or her nonexistent sex life. But the town’s irresistibly rugged librarian is determined to figure her out…and give her hands-on lessons in every wicked thing she wants to know. Gabe MacKenzie’s heart might be in Wyoming, but secretly his future’s tied up in his family’s Manhattan legacy. Getting down and dirty with Veronica is supposed to give him a few memorable nights–not complicate his plans. But the thing about heat this scorching is there’s just no going back…and it might be too hot for either of them to take.

(lol, this cover makes Gabe look like he’s a vampire in a paranormal, however…where’s this famous beard?)

Taking the Heat is another Fated Mates rec from an older episode (2.32 – it got an episode all to itself) and this one is allllllll about C*nnilingus Gabe. OK. Not really. But for real, #heroesdoeat 😉 It’s really about figuring out what you want and stumbling on a partner who also wants you, perceived-flaws and all.

Veronica has a lot of what she thinks are flaws – she failed at her dream life in NYC, she’s not conventionally attractive, she’s kinda faking it through the advice columns she writes, and to top it all off she’s still a technical p-in-v virgin. Also, her father is an emotional wrecking ball. Gabe, on the other hand, is the hottest, and possibly nicest, librarian to ever exist and his dream is to work at a library in a town with access to good places to do outdoorsy things like climbing…but his father wants him to take over the family restaurant empire in NYC in a year (aka a soul-crushing job). So these two are actually pretty perfect for each other – if they would actually communicate their feelings (they do, eventually).

CW for garbage family members (Veronica), HS bullying/sexual harassment recounted in the past (Veronica), discussion of suicidal ideation/suicide prevention (teenager who writes into Veronica’s column)

Dear FTC: I bought my copy of this book on my Nook.