Actual Rating: 4.5 stars

Bookish Boyfriends offers a modern take on classic literary romance that is funny, cute, and will be eminently relatable to many current or former teenage bookworms. (Speaking as a former teenager and lifelong bookworm myself!) 16-year-old Merrilee Cambell has two sisters, two best friends (one of whom is kind of in love with her), and lots of crushes...of the literary variety that is! This bookworm is a hopeless romantic when it comes to her books, but has never had a real-life boyfriend. But then, she starts attending a new school and everything begins to change.

Merrilee is assigned to read Romeo and Juliet in class, but when her love life begins to mirror fiction (Pride & Prejudice and Little Women make later appearances) she begins to wonder if there might be something magical about her new English Teacher. I loved it! The English teacher was king of like a less overt Mary Poppins, always carrying a subtle aura of magic and whimsey. She was a fantastic character, definitely one of my favorites.

But one of the things I love about this book is there are a lot of great characters and relationships that get surprisingly fleshed out. We get to see characters really come to life in her sisters, her parents, her friends, and her love interests. I was impressed with the depth of those relationships and intrigued to know more about the side characters. I could see this being a really fun series. I also really liked how we see Merrilee grow and learn that real-life relationships are complicated, "romance" isn't always very romantic, and people may not be what they seem at first.

This was also just such a fun book with lots of funny moments. Seeing the way key moments from classic stories play out was fun and I liked the underlying message that YOUR book might not be what you think, but the process of discovering it is important. I very much enjoyed this and the only reason it isn't 5 stars is that the beginning kind of dragged. I wish it had started with something more attention-getting, then returned to laying the groundwork. Regardless, the payoff was definitely worth it, so if you're looking for a light, entertaining read, this is a good choice. I received an e-arc of this book from Net-Galley in exchange for an honest review.

As a person with more book boyfriends than I can count, this book came as a cautionary tale. Everyone at some time or another wishes that the boys they met in real life could mirror those that we find in novels. Unfortunately for the main character, that didn't turn out quite the way that she planned. I did enjoy this book, it was definitely cute - it just didn't grab me the way that I so desperately wanted it to.

This book was so cute but it had serious and important stuff too! How often have we all read novels and got swept up in the romance wishing we were dating the hero (or heroine in my case)? Well this book takes a look at what happens if you do date the hero, from both the good and bad sides actually.

I absolutely love Merrilee and how small but strong she is, not necessarily physically but emotionally, she had the strength to realise that something wasn't right and to do what needed to be done. Monroe was a jackass who needed way more of a comeuppance. Eliza was a great friend and I felt sorry for her with her parents being constantly absent.

Toby was a sweetheart and the perfect example of how to act when you have a crush on your friend that isn't reciprocated. That is, no differently to normal and if you have that much of an issue (which Toby didn't) then break off the friendship. Fielding was an interesting character and I loved the way he developed over the course of the book.

All the characters were well-developed and I really wanted to know more about Mrs. Gregoire, did she have some kind of magical powers? The whole life imitating fiction thing was fascinating as well, I'm just gutted we didn't learn Trent and Lilly's 'bookish' story. Small plot gaps like that are what knock off half a star, it was so so close to being 5 stars and on the web where halves don't exist it'll be rounded up rather than down.

4.5/5 stars

I really enjoyed this book! I feel like the timeline of it seemed really fast though. the whole story takes place in like 3 weeks, which seems like a really short amount of time for the whole story to unfold.

I think expanding that timeline to something like 3 months may have made it all a little more realistic to me.

But nonetheless I loved the story, and I do hope there's a sequel!

Bookish Boyfriends is for anyone who has fallen hard for the boys they read about. To read such a purely fun and sweet book was a joy. Perfect for preteens and those who love a swoon worthy book boyfriend.

I recieved this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I wanted to love this book. It has a good storyline and the writing is good, but I hated the main character and her best boyfriend. (I also hated her ex boyfriend, but I think we were supposed to hate him.) Merrilee is stubborn and whiny, and I want her to be a better person than she is. She just falls flat of my expectations of who she should be. I did love Toby and Fielding though, they were great guys, and they had good character development. The book was okay, but I expected more from it, so it was a little disappointing.

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE did I mention love??? I really really really really loved this. I fell in love during the first few pages and I couldn't put it down. I. COULD. NOT. PUT. IT. DOWN! I loved the characters and I loved the connections to the other literature. This gave me butterflies, giddiness, all the FEELS!

I'm sure I will purchase this book for my library, because I can think of a number of readers who might enjoy it. That being said, I was disappointed in the story.

I think the premise of the book sounded very interesting, but the story itself turned out to be completely different from it.
I found the main character really annoying and frustrating, and the love story unbelievable and unrealistic. I wanted to like it, but I struggled to continue reading it. The writing wasn’t that great, and sometimes I didn’t know what was going on. I feel the interactions between the characters sometimes didn’t add anything to the story and were there just so we knew our protagonist had friends and family.
Like I said before, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the romance, mainly because it happened very fast and was so insta love-y.
I had high expectations, but I ended up quite disappointed.

I wasn't a fan of this book. I don't think this book Matched what the book blurb was at all I was expecting a completely different book. Spoiler? This book is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice and I really have a problem with Darcy which I didn't realize until I read this book. I don't like Redeeming the guy who's a jerk just because he doesn't know how to express his emotions and his feelings for the girl. I don't like the guy who says that he doesn't like the fact that he has a crush on the girl. I think this book might work for someone who's a fan of Pride and Prejudice but it's not what I would recommend.

I enjoyed reading this book from start to finish. It was a great light read that left me wanting more! The characters were charming and relatable (especially to a younger audience). This book brought me back to my early days of high school and all the excitement with young love. While this novel would be ideal for teen readers, I can see adults (like myself) enjoying it as well.

I don't usually get into the general fiction young adult literature, preferring the fantasy and sci-fi genres; however, this book surprised me. Knowing the books the bookish boyfriends are modeled on may ruin some of the surprises, but it also adds some depth and connections you may not otherwise see. This was a cute, romantic novel that managed to be dramatic without going over the top.

I LOVED this book. It was fun and had me giggling as well as easily falling in love with the characters. I highly suggest it for people who would like a fun, easy read.

This book was fun and witty and such a quick read for me. The story drew me in from the first chapter. The family dynamic was awesome and being a huge bookworm it was easy to connect with the main character. The side characters did a great job of supporting the plot. I do hope I see more books from this author in the same series perhaps? ;)

This was definitely a cute and fluffy contemporary read for me. And I found that it actually reads more of a middle grade book than an YA book. The writing was more juvenile than I was expecting. But don't get me wrong it was still a fun read. Who hasn't dreamed about one of their bookish boyfriends coming to life, and even though I have read Pride and Prejudice and saw the story coming I think it would be great for young readers who have not read it and might in the end get them interested in one the most famous classic books printed.
All in all I would recommend this book for younger teens or anyone who is looking for a light and fluffy beach read who might have a soft spot for Pride and Prejudice.

It took a little while for me to get into this book. Merrilee’s internal conversations distracted me. After I got used to it, I enjoyed the plot unfolding to parallel Romeo and Juliet and Pride and Prejudice. I think the characters would be a great example to teach archetypes in literature. Fielding is a classic, brooding love interest and the perfect Darcy. This ended up being a charming book for hopeless romantics.

I’m sorry but this is one of those books I couldn’t get very far into. When the main characters sound like boy crazy ding dongs I just can’t....... There is an audience for this type but not for me. I will get it for our collection because I do know several who would love it.

Cute and fun, if not a little predictable.

This was a great, light romance - but I felt like most of the secondary characters weren’t well fleshed out, and the story felt a bit shallow and at times, predictable.

It was also a little frustrating because Merrilee was like the very definition of a manic pixie dream girl. She was a little *too* quirky, and her “ugh too bad I, with my classic standard Westernized version of beauty, am found to be adorable and cute by everyone - ugh I wish I was sexy” thing was majorly eye roll worthy.

It was great to read a cute, and lighthearted romance, and I really enjoyed the hint of magical realism. However, I definitely felt too old for this book, and had a hard time relating to Merrilee, and would have loved more insight into any of the secondary characters.

As cute and lighthearted as this story is, I found myself scanning a lot of it because it reads a little younger than I was expecting, though it’s understandable because the protagonist is a sophomore. But it’s a lot of fun, and all the book allusions are a nice touch. Thanks, Netgalley, for the ARC.

I DNFed this book. From the beginning the main character was just irritating constantly rating all of the male characters and feeling so low about herself but jealous of her best friend. Everyone seemed to want to talk to her and it just ended up reading like a romance fanfiction. I liked Toby and I wish the other characters had as much depth and mystery about them. There were parts of the book that I liked but the writing style, the awkwardness and the main characters just made me not want to invest in this book enough.