Friends-to-lovers is always one of my favorite tropes, and The Heartbreak Cure combines it with a fun fauxmance for a really sweet enjoyable YA story. I loved Alex- poor guy, his childhood is really tragic and I wanted to reach in the book and give him a big hug. Cat is a great character- someone I'd want to be friends with. I enjoyed the side characters too, in particular Cat's mom and Alex's boss Joe and his grandmother Birdie. Lots of witty dialog and swoony moments- a great read!

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆
4-5 stars from a young adult perspective – teens will swoon over Alex.
3-4 stars from those young at heart, due to predictability.
3.5 stars overall.

Cat is suffering from heartbreak – a hot boy from school used Goodreads, of all places, to learn about her and figure out a way to hook her emotionally, since the physically was a given, all to win a bet. Cat learns a valuable lesson, and young readers will too. This ends badly for Cat, leaving her humiliated more so than heartbroken. Meanwhile, the douche-noodle jock is seen as a hero, hilarious instead of seen as rotten for his actions. Cat's an avid reader and aspiring writer, daughter to a single young mother who is an eccentric artist.

Alex used to be Cat's best friend and neighbor. The brooding loaner, supposedly bad boy, has always had a crush on Cat, and swoops in to save the day, like the unlikely hero he truly is. Alex has problems, having an elderly grandmother in a home as his guardian, but having to work and pay his own way while only 17, all the while trying his hardest to gain a scholarship to college and get out of the town that looks down upon him.

...and a faux relationship is born to prove Cat has moved on, with the one boy she can count on unconditionally.

I won't ruin the plot from there. Young adults will swoon over Alex. Cat is a solid heroine to learn from during the journey. This friends-to-crushes novel is sugary sweet and gives the warmest of fuzzies. The grown adult in me found it a bit too sweet and predicable, but enjoyed it nonetheless.

I highly recommend to actual young adults, and leave it up to the young at heart to decide if the book is right for them. I look forward to reading more by Amanda Ashby in the future.

Young Adult age-range: 12+ for this sweet romance.

I received an ARC through Netgalley for an honest review

I gave this book 3.5 stars. It felt like it ended a bit soon, it would have been nicer if it was a bit longer and everything was a bit more fleshed out, but I still had a good time.

As you may know, I’ve been really into contemporary romances lately and have been reading lots of those to fuel my flame. After reading this one I feel I have finally been satisfied and can now move on to reading more of other genres. This isn't a bad thing at all, it wasn’t like I was so completely disgusted by the book that I couldn’t read another in this genre. It was more like I’ve finally read so many in the past few months that I need to read something new.

Birdie was an amazing character, she was the character that I think every person real and fictional needs in their lives and I was so happy that these characters had her around to be a good influence. She’s crazy and wise and really helped the characters out with their transitions.

A character I didn’t expect to like was Isabel. We don’t actually see much of her, but throughout the book, we are led to believe that she just isn’t a very good person and we dislike her because of the protagonist's perception of her. In the end, she somehow managed to win me over and I’m glad. Our protagonist needs some more friends, she seems a bit lonely.

Our two protagonist go through a lot together and I’m glad they managed to help each other and had a healthy relationship. They were really good to each other and it was nice reading a romance where both parties treat each other with respect.

Overall, maybe not the most amazing thing I’ve ever read in my life, I’ve read better, but this is still a pretty good book that I would definitely support you reading.

Thanks to NetGalley and Entangled Publishing for the opportunity to read and review The Heartbreak Cure by Amanda Ashby! Cat is trying to move on after being humiliated by Bennet, who dated Cat as a challenge and not because he liked her. Then he told everyone about it by putting it online in the form of a YouTube video, humiliating her even more. Alex is Cat’s friend and has been for years. He’s dealing with his family problems but wants to help Cat. The two of them make an agreement to pose as girlfriend/boyfriend to soften any blow that will surely happen when school starts up again. Alex feels as though he’s hiding his true self from everyone he cares about and he’s afraid to share a secret that’s been tearing him apart since the day his mom and siblings died in a car accident years ago. Cat and Alex are realistic and lovable characters that build this story into more than just a romantic tale. The two of them, along with the dynamic and interesting side characters, make this young adult realistic fiction fun! 5 stars for the complexity and realism of the characters!

~♥~ BOOK REVIEW ~♥~

…there would be four large brownies, the color of freshly turned soil, nestled within the tissue paper-one for pain, another for hope, a third for wisdom, and the fourth for joy. Birdie referred to them as her heartbreak cure, guaranteed to fix even the most shattered of hearts.
This book was such a sweet, honest and extremely lovable contemporary romance! With a bit of a slow burning friends-to-lovers romance, the romance in this book was just a joy to read. It gave me all the warm and fuzzy feels inside while reading. Then there’s also The ‘fake boyfriend’ trope present in this book and that has always been a trope I adored immensely in a romance story. There’s just something about two people unexpectedly falling in love with the pretense of a relationship and turning it into something more and the way Amanda writes it down is just really amazing I think.

Cat is about to start her junior year when the boy she had briefly dated over the summer not only dumps her but publishes a video on YouTube that she had been part of his challenge for the summer of “date a freak for a week and see how far you can get.” Not a great way for her to start the new year, right? The newspaper editor threatens her position so she’s totally freaked out about that as well. So, then she enlists the help of her friend, Alex, to fill in as a pretend boyfriend so everyone will stop talking about her and move on to something else.

“The characters felt very realistic
and were really lovable to me,
right from the start.”

Alex is that brooding ‘no good on the outside’ character but ‘very lovable and extremely sweet on the inside guy’ who stole my heart. It was, first of all, a joy to read both POV’s because I really liked reading Alex’ side of this story. He hasn’t had the nicest upbringing with his mom being a drug addict and a lot of traumatizing things happening, so he remains distant to everyone at school. Outside of school, he has a friend in Cat, who he secretly is attracted to but doesn’t want to show because he feels like she deserves way better than him. I felt for him, guys. He was so sweet and broken and insecure at times. On the outside, he had some very lovable and sexy traits well-known for a typical ‘bad boy’ a lot of readers love to read about. I really loved this ‘package’ called Alex. There was so much more to him than meets the eye and I really loved exploring this character and seeing him develop throughout the story.

Kissing Alex was the best cure to heartbreak that she’d ever discovered.
And can we talk a minute about his grandmother? OMG she’s amaaaazing! Not only with her baking brownies and such haha but she’s just a really well developed minor character I absolutely fell in love with and I know you guys are going to as well! All main characters and several secondary characters were just really amazing. They are easy to love and connect with. And aside from them being cute, lovable and realistic, there was also some great humor present and I love the banter between some of the characters. I had to smile A LOT during this read, so that’s definitely a PRO!

Cat is a cute and recognizable character with some great characteristics like she writes for example which I thought was really great woven throughout the story. And I really liked the way she develops in this story, how she opens up for Alex on a whole deeper level than just friends. I kind of loved the way she came up with the whole ‘fake relationship’ thingy even though you see the trouble coming from miles away when it comes to putting two friends together who may or may not have Reel feelings for each other but they don’t want the other one to know about it haha. I really liked that she was ‘ballsy’ enough to pull this off, I don’t think I’d ever dare ask a boy, even a friend, to do this kind of thing, lol. So kudos for Cat!!

I wholly embraced this developing romance between Alex and Cat, straight away. Even more so after getting to know Alex a bit better. Gosh, he’s such a great guy and I FELL HARD for him. I really think he’s a perfect match for Cat. They are just so adorable together and their chemistry is off the charts! Their romance development was ‘just right’ you know? I loved everything about their romance and felt so full of joy when seeing it blossom! And especially because of Alex I think, there’s a lot of depth to this story and romance which makes it a lot more than just a ‘high school romance’. Both characters already feel like ‘adults’ on some level which made me appreciate their romance and this story-development even more.

“I really recommend this book to everyone who’s in for a
cute, recognizable and lovable high school romance
with really cute and lovable characters who’ll melt your heart.”

I loved Amanda’s writing and can’t wait to read more stories by this author – like her adult books, for example, *squeeeeeel*. I was hooked, right from the start and that’s only possible if the writing is good! With every second I could spare, I immediately sat down with my Kindle – sat down, or standing outside Milan’s school for example, between all those parents looking funny my way haha, waiting for him – to get some reading done and somewhere along the line I just forgot about time and a life outside of this book and just kept reading, lol.

This is a perfect book for every (contemporary) YA romance reader out there. You start this book, immediately hooked to the story and writing and you’re finished before you know it – because you just can’t stop once started. At least; that’s how it was for me haha. This book somehow made some kind of intense connection to my inner bookworm/romanticist and made me want to keep being attached to it for as long as possible. So yeah, needless to say, I’d recommend this book but here I go anyway haha:

I have really, really, REALLY enjoyed this book. It had the perfect pace, with a plot that left me wanting more at the end. It is well written, cohesive with no loopholes.

Cat was just dumped, and to make it worse, the boy who dumped her only dated her as a dare and recorded the whole situation to upload to youtube for everyone to see. To make things worse, her job on the school newspaper is now on the line since the editor believes she might be too emotionally unstable to handle it. Enter Alex, Cat's old neighbor and friend, thought of as the "bad boy" but really just keeps to himself. Cat comes up with a plan to fake date Alex to make everyone believe she moved on, but what happens when real feelings get involved in a fake relationship?

Gawd, I really loved this book! Like, for realsies I want a physical copy just so I could hug it. This was the perfect blend of everything I didn't know I needed and I could not stop reading until it was over and I had to stop because there was literally nothing left. I found the book to be so charming, fun, cute, sweet and quirky, as well as character driven with two of the best characters I have read recently.

Usually I have a favorite character in a book, but here my love was equally spread between Cat and Alex- I loved them both and appreciated their differences. As per my favorite, this was a dual narrated romance so the story was told by both characters. Cat was so determined and kind, ready to try and see the good in most situations and fight against injustices. Her fiction writing was hysterical, be it romantic or death, and beware of those killer ants. Alex was such a sweet guy even though he was completely wrong about his self perception. He cast this bad boy image, but he was the picture of respect and hard work, never once stepping out of bounds and trying so hard to do well in all aspects. If anyone needed a hug, it was this boy- but he has Cat so it all works out.

I had to include a few quirky parts here, they were too good to resist and show the dynamic of the story so well:

Yet another thing to file under “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time” in her brain.


She peered down at her feet. No sign of the earth splitting in two. Which was a real pity because, as far as she could tell, a natural disaster was her only way out of the conversation.


I’m starting to think he doesn’t exist. He’s just a fictional name someone’s created to scam the school for a paycheck. Which for the record, would make a great story, but I won’t be able to write it because I’ll be kicked off the paper. See how this thing works?”

Her anger faded— probably because, like her eyes, it kept getting distracted by his mouth.

As a side note, the minor characters were also great, be it Cat's awesome mom the determined hippie artist with cheesy popular greeting cards, Joe the grumpy mechanic who would do anything for Alex regardless of him seeing it, Nikki the supportive pushy bright best friend as well as well as Alex's grandmother Birdie and her heartbreak brownies, all knowing information sources and wild retirement home parties. They were so cute!

This was the perfect, fun character driven teen romance that was low on the heat but high on the sweet (ok, so I realize that was a little cheesy, but still true!). This was my first book by Amanda and I can't wait to read whatever I can get my hands on by her.

​I received this title for reviewing purposes.​ Come visit me at https://smadasbooksmack.blogspot.com/

4.25 - Sweet, Adorable and Scrumptiously Delightful

The Heartbreak Cure by Amanda Ashby is an endearing friends to lovers story that satisfied my endless cravings for swoony reads. It’s funny, super sweet and so scrumptiously delightful!

In case I don’t say it enough, Entangled Teen Crush books are engaging, utterly captivating, and some of the best reads for curing those long tiring and stressful days. Stories like The Heartbreak Cure always make my heart so full of happy. I even had some good laughs and the butterflies surely had one crazy dancing party.

This book is undeniably funtastic! The writing was amazing and had a nice flow that made it not only easy to read but also very enjoyable. The plot was fast-paced, entertaining, and swoontastic in every way. I loved the characters and thought they were just so adorable. The drama, the angst, and the little mystery certainly kept me intrigued. The romance was insanely sweet with plenty of spine-tingling moments that had me blushing and my heart fluttering. Oh and the other relationships — so genuine and incredibly heartwarming that without a doubt made this book even more awesome.

I really loved Alex and Cat together. Their chemistry was quite steamy and definitely gave me the feels. Every touch, every kiss, every single moment they shared put a smile on my face. They’re also really amazing individuals who are talented, kind, smart, and caring. Obviously I shipped them from the very beginning and swooned with them throughout the story.

I also really liked Nikki and Parker and thought they were just the cutest. Hopefully, there will be a book about them. Can’t forget about the relationship between Alex and his grandmother — it’s just the sweetest and totally melted my heart. Honestly, this book is just so full of wonderful friendships and relationships that will leave you with a fuzzy warm feeling.

The Heartbreak Cure is another fun and charming read from Entangled Teen Crush. There’s amazing friendships, great family dynamics, sweet romances, and characters you can’t help but love. While it is light-hearted, adorable, and cutesy, this book also deals with sensitive issues, important life lessons, and so much more. It truly is a wonderful story about grief, forgiveness, second chances, and love that I strongly recommend you add to your TBR.

I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

3.5 “Bad Boys, Dark Pasts and Kissing” Stars

ARC via NetGalley.

Thank you, Entangled Teen!

Another win when it comes to Entangled Crush.

While The Heartbreak Cure was just as cute and sweet as most of the YA romances published by Entangled Crush, it stood out to me because it did a great job building relationships that made me feel aside from the romance.

Using a mix of friends to lovers + fake relationship + bad boy tropes, the romance was swoony from start to finish, especially because I learned early on Alex had a thing for Cat. I'm all for the "boy secretly likes girl" thing, and it worked really well here. But, yeah, like I said, I'd come to expect adorable romance arcs from this publisher, and while I'm super happy this wasn't an exception, I'm also glad we also got to see good family and frienship bonds.

The relationships between Cat and her mother and Cat and her best friend brought a much needed lighteness to the story, which balanced well Alex's much heavier side. Cat's mom was pretty awesome, and I truly enjoyed seeing those two being respecteful and having a healthy mother-daughter relationship. As to Cat and her best friend, there was no unecessary drama or girl hate, which YAY!!!! Those two seemed to really enjoy each other's company, and I loved how her friend was the sassy one while Cat was a little shy and more reserved.

While Cat's arc was more focused on the romance and her passion for writing, I thought Alex had the biggest and heavier arc. Poor guy had a dark past that dragged him down and made me feel like he was unworthy of love, which broke my heart. Alex was a great guy: honest, hard-working, respectful, so he deserved to let go of those ghosts and be happy. I loved how he got to that happy point by noticing that he wasn't alone (and in truth hadn't been for a while). His relationship with his boss, his grandmother and with Cat were huge influnces and helped him underestand that there were more than enough people in his life that believed in him and saw the good in him.

The Heartbeat Cure was a little heavier on the internal and emotional arc side of things, but it was still a cute and fun read.

*Amazon review live*

I loved this book. I want to thank Entangled Teen Crush and Netgalley for providing me with an e-arc.

The characters were fun to get to know and Alex is someone I loved getting to see the layers in. Cat's dad left before she was born and Alex lost most of his family to a drug caused car crash. Both are dealing with demons of their own while trying to make a better life for themselves. Cat's ex-boyfriend posted a mean video of her online and asks Alex to be her fake boyfriend to help lessen the blow of the bullying she's going to receive in school. Alex says yes because of the bad-boy tough guy reputation he has.

I am a sucker for fake-relationship books. I always have been. And this one is no different. Its warm, fuzzy, fun and so swoon worthy. Alex cares about Cat more than she is even aware of and she loves him with all her heart. While the story is about their love, I think it's also about their relationship as friends and learning to trust. I would 100% recommend this for any romance and contemporary fans out there.

I’m currently in the mood for sweet YA romances, which is why I decided to pick up The Heartbreak Cure. And I was not disappointed! I loved reading about Cat, she was funny and relatable, and I also liked Alex. The romance was sweet, and the plot was good, if a little bit slow. All in all, this is exactly what a YA romance should be!

Cat is such a relatable character!

I loved reading about Cat. She was really funny, and there was no boring moment with her. She was relatable, and smart, and loved writing. That alone is enough to make me love her. She made me laugh so often. For me, Cat made the whole book so much better than it would’ve been without her.

I also like Alex.

I’ll admit I liked reading about Cat more. There was just something about her. But Alex is also nice. I liked reading about him. And I loved seeing how much he grew throughout the book. He learned to open up and to let people in, and it was great seeing that happen.

The characters overall where awesome.

Not only did I love Cat and Alex, but some of the supporting characters were also great! Birdie is simply awesome, and I also loved Mackenzie. She could be a bit harsh, for sure, but at the end, you could see a softer side to her. I loved how even one of the supporting characters went through character development – it made it so obvious that the author really tried to make every character important and interesting.

The romance is so sweet.

You can tell from the beginning that there is chemistry between Cat and Alex. And when Cat comes up with her brilliant idea that they should pretend to be a couple, you know it’ll end badly. Alex already likes her, has for a long time, so obviously they can’t pretend to date without mixing feelings into it. But it was fun and interesting to read about.

The plot could’ve been a bit more fast-paced.

I’ll admit, the plot got a little bit boring at times, and I felt like some things got repeated several times. But the other good things made up for most of it. It prevented me from loving it as much as I hoped, but I still really enjoyed the story and reading about the characters.

So, if you like romances that are focused mostly on the characters, this book is for you. Every character plays a big role in the plot, even the smallest supporting characters, not to mention the both main characters are so interesting and fun to read about. The romance is super sweet, so if you don’t mind a slower romance, this book is definitely for you.

I genuinely enjoyed this novel. I mean, I always loved Entangled Crush's novels and this was no different. Alex? swooonn! And I loved Cat as well. Overall, it was great. Perhaps, not one of my favourites of this imprint, but definitely a worthwhile read!

4.5

Alex and Cat have grown up together, living next door but then his grandmother moved into a senior apartment and he moved out to his own place above his work.  His family life left a lot to be desired and he works really hard to overcome his history by getting excellent grades, working two jobs and visiting his grandmother.  As he strived to get a scholarship, he finds that his essay writing is lacking.  

Cat has just survived becoming a victim of a prank over the summer that left her devastated when a boy breaks her heart and puts the video online of her breakdown. She comes up with a plan to show she is over the relationship by creating a fake romance with her friend Alex. Both of them have feelings for each other but they downplay those feelings.  

Just when things are going great for this pair, Alex is confronted by his past and he doesn't want Cat to really know what happened to his family and the guilt he carries with him.  With a lot of feeling and emotion, the pair try to overcome all of the setbacks he has faced. 

Amanda Ashby has written two of my favorite books Fairy Bad Day and You Had Me at Halo and now I can add The Heartbreak Cure to that list.  This was a super fast read for me and the characters were so realistic, the whole story was easy to believe and relate to.  Even though it had the potential to get a little bit sappy, it retains an attitude that reminds me of a clean Katy McGarry book.  Yes, it has that much emotional pull.  4.5

Cat suffered the worst kind of humiliation with the ex-boyfriend Bennett, but thanks to this situation his childhood friend Alex rejoins her. Alex had his life marked and changed after a tragedy happened to his family and after that he moved away from everything and everyone, but seeing his friend and childhood crush suffering he resolves to help her with his grandmother's famous brownies.

With this approach, Cat and Alex end up getting involved and their romance rolls past Alex's past still haunts and chases him, he will need a lot of strength to decide if he fights for everything he has ever dreamed or if he accepts his fate and gives up everything.
The novel is very light and delightful to read, the characters are captivating both the main and the secondary.

I loved how the writer used her romance's background to present a strong message of resilience, strength, loyalty, and true love. I love books with the right amount of humor and love and no excessive dramas.
5/5 stars

This is such a charming book! Kat and Alex are adorable together. I really liked both characters. Kat was recently dumped by the guy she was dating in a very public and humiliating way. She is hurting and to make matters worse, she is worried that she will not be able to be on the newspaper committee because of this humiliation. Kat decides that in order to lessen the embarrassment and ensure her spot on the newspaper, she needs a boyfriend to show that she is over being dumped, enter her friend Alex. Alex is such a complex character. He has had a tough life and has convinced himself he does not deserve good things. He pushes people way with the exception of his hilarious grandma and sometimes Kat. Alex is a character that you can greatly sympathize with and you can tell he is a good person even if he doesn’t believe it himself. The chemistry between Kat and Alex is so sweet. They are friends and genuinely like each other. This book was a quick read that had me rooting for both characters.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from Entangled Publishing, LCC via Netgalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

5 STARS FOR THE HEARTBREAK CURE!! What a sweet perfect story to mend a broken heart by pretending a hot guy is your new boyfriend. This story was perfect and fun to read. I loved seeing Cat and Alex's story unfold, the author did a fantastic job. I voluntarily reviewed an advance reader copy of this book from publisher via NetGalley.

This book is so very good. It is for sure 5 stakes from me. When Cat's breakup goes viral on youtube, she thinks of a spur of the moment plan. Enter is sort of friend Alex.
Alex likes to keep to himself and avoid any drama or friends. He only visits Cat in her backyard. Because he has plans for his future and he wants to stick to them. But when Cat ask for his help he wants to runaway from it. But how can he say no when he has always liked her?
But being a fake boyfriend gets blury when feelings are involved. When the past comes back to Alex, he does what he thinks is best.
This book is all about find yourself and believing in yourself. And letting go to finding out you can be good enough. Cat see's only the goodness in Alex and always had. Very quick read for me as well. 4 hours and it was done. Told from both p.o.v.'s Cat and Alex.

Thank you to Entangled Teen and NetGalley for providing me with an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book was cute and most definitely swoon worthy! I finished this book in one day, and for me, that’s a huge feat, as I am not that fast of a reader. But The Heartbreak Cure was a fast and wonderful read. And the plot and characters were beautifully written. I enjoyed this book so much that when I had to put it down for work or school, I felt like I was dealing with separation anxiety. I had to know what happened next so when I was not reading this book, I was thinking about the characters and what was going to happen next. I am not a huge contemporary reader, so the fact that The Heartbreak Cure stayed on my mind days later after reading the book, demonstrates just how good this book is.

What I enjoyed about The Heartbreak Cure:

The swoon worthy romance: The romance between Cat and Alex is full of tension and swooning moments. Alex already likes Cat in a more-than-a-friend way, so knowing that from the beginning definitely adds to the romance throughout the book. I also liked how Cat liked Alex for who he is and did not try to change him; that is romance right there, and it was beautifully written.

The relationships between family and friends: I really enjoyed reading about Cat’s relationships with her mom and best friend. These relationships added a balance to the story, so the book was not all romance, but rather a mix of romance with healthy relationships between family and friends.

Cat and Alex: There is no doubt that I loved the two main characters. They both have passion for different things, but those passions helped shape each character, and it very much worked for this story. Also, Cat was dealing with her present issues while Alex was dealing with the demons from his past. Both of their issues helped bring them together.

Overall, Amanda Ashby wrote a wonderful book, and if you are looking for a new romantic read with a swoony bad boy, a relatable main character, and enjoyable banter, then The Heartbreak Cure is for you! The Heartbreak Cure by Amanda Ashby releases this week!

Thanks to reading The Heartbreak Cure, I will definitely be reading Amanda Ashby’s other books. The characters from The Heartbreak Cure are still in my mind days later, so this is a book you will remember!

Rate: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars. This is a cute friends to more story that starts out with a "fakeship". It also has the whole bad boy redeeming himself thing going on. While the book is filled with tropes of the genre, it's a fun read that lives up to more than just a book filled with cliches. The book features a great parental-child relationship between Cat and her mom, as well as a positive example of friendship between Cat and her best friend Nikki. There is nothing groundbreaking here, but it's a fun read that I would recommend to anyone looking for a cute YA romance.

3.5 Stars

The Heartbreak Cure started off with what looked your classic bestie to pretend lovers to the real thing storyline. Your classic cute and fluffy it seemed.
I was quite content with that. If you would have asked me around halfway in, what I thought, I would have told you very swoony cute & fluffy, very predictable and really enjoyable.
And then it took a turn. So suddenly this is more than a cute & fluffy. And I still love it.
But while The Heartbreak Cure did somehow manage to breach the cliff from cute & fluffy and thoughtful & heartbreaking, it seems like it can't decide what it is. Funny that I should fault that, but somehow, it felt unfulfilled.
Well, not the storyline mind you, it's cute, at times predictable and yet very enjoyable.
But the actual novel, the feel of it. I mean I liked the fluff for the first 70something percent and I liked the fluff ending as well. I really enjoyed the more serious parts. I loved how Alex and Cat, both come to the conclusion that not all is what it seems. I like that they are both mopey teens with a backbone. But somehow the fluff ending didn't make me feel all swoony because my heart was just dragged through the trenches and the issues Ashy highlighted weren't so simple to let go. It was too sweet in the end too fluffy. Somehow I feel there could have been more here. I was given a hint of more and then it was just brushed away.

The writing style is my least favorite part of the novel. It's okay, but at times it felt a bit wooden. Some phrases are just a bit so much of the usual usual. I am being very critical here, as always when it comes to writing style. While the style might not have been my favorite, it didn't detract from how much I liked the book.. clearly.

The character building, on the other hand, was my favorite. I adore Alex. Cat in all her drama queen mopey teen glory is super sweet. I could relate to her and identify with her. The support cast was interesting as well. Some of the characters were are first glance a bit of the usual typecast, but as we get to know them they do get more unique. I like that Ashby took a set of given ideas and characters and made them her own.

Very enjoyable, at times surprising and very sweet cute & fluffy with a pinch of depth thrown in for good measure.